COAST CHARACTER
Artisan chocolatier Melanie Neil finds herbal inspiration on foraging walks around her Helensburgh home near Loch Lomond, on Scotland’s west coast
Melanie Neil, Helensburgh, Scotland
Istart each day with a walk with my border collie, Skye. Heading along the peninsula towards Cardross, we stop at Ardmore Point, which is rugged and green, a little gem of a bay with an old wooden jetty. In summer, I pick everything from Japanese wild rose petals to lemon thyme and bee pollen. In winter, I forage rosehips for syrup, blackberries and wild pears, which I’ve used for a limited-edition chocolate bar, From the Land to the Loch, made of Peruvian cocoa, dried wild pears and elderberries.
Nigel Slater said ‘What grows together goes together’, and I did an interesting experiment one summer morning. The scent of roses that day was incredible, and they were growing beside some wild blackberries. So I wrapped a blackberry in a rose petal and ate it. The flavours together were fantastic. The landscape and what grows here is my inspiration.
It’s a world away from my previous job. Born in Lancashire, I joined the British Army at 21 and trained as a medic. When I left, I came to Scotland with my husband, whose work is based here. I took an intensive master chef course at Cocoa Black in Peebles, and named my company CocoaMo in honour of my mum, Maureen, or Mo, who was passionate about chocolate. I source cocoa beans from farms worldwide, but I try to make sure everything else is local, like the honey from an apiary on the other side of the peninsula. The community here really supports small businesses, and at Christmas they buy their presents from us.
What I love about this coast is its moodiness. On a sunny day it’s tranquil; on a blustery day the waves can come in at 40ft high, lashing over the road. It’s incredibly dramatic and elemental. We had bottlenose whales recently, there are dolphins, and at Ardmore Point you see seals, which are lovely.
Every collection is unique but for one last year, you could open the box and get that hit of cocoa aroma, but also thyme found by a rocky path, the wet scent of black peppermint, the waft of roses from the cliffside. If I can tie things in some way to Helensburgh, I always do.
Browse Melanie’s chocolate bars and boxes at cocoamochocolates.co.uk. She also features in From Bean to Bar – A
Chocolate Lover’s Guide to Britain by Andrew Baker (£15.99, AA Publishing).