What constitutes a hero? Is it someone who you admire for her or his
accomplishments in life? Maybe it’s someone whose actions or attitude you wish
to emulate in your own? Or is it someone who you would follow to the ends of
the Earth because you so believe in her or his cause?
Ignatius has us contemplate the question of who our heroes are in the
Second Week of his Spiritual Exercises. This Call of the King is meant to
inspire fidelity towards Jesus by first having us turn inward and ask
ourselves: would we follow this man – not even as the son of God, but just a
man – whose mission it is to save humanity?
Before I could even answer that, however, I had to think about who I
would follow if, today, she or he knocked on my door and called me to join a
transglobal mission for the greater good. I thought about movie stars,
athletes, scientists, directors, but there was no one I could imagine devoting
my life to.
Except one.
When this person first popped into mind, I thought it was a fluke. But after
the first impression, I kept coming back to him. He isn’t anyone you’d
recognize by name. In fact, unless you lived in California in the late ‘90s,
you may have absolutely no idea who I’m talking about when I tell you that I
think my hero is Robert Steinberg.
If you Google “Robert Steinberg,” the person I mean is the second
result, right under Robert Steinberg, the Moldavian mathematician who taught at
UCLA. Yes, my hero is Robert Steinberg, the co-founder of Scharffen Berger
Chocolate.
Is this simply a chocoholic idolizing a chocolate maker? Maybe a little
bit, but I also greatly admire Steinberg’s story, and wish that, if I were a
similar situation, I would have the courage and tenacity to follow his example.
In 1989, Steinberg was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, and given a 50% chance
of dying within ten years. Knowing it would be difficult, he sold his medical
practice in California and went out to discover his interests.
Among other things, he took drawing and music lessons, and it was at the
suggestion of a friend that he picked up a 600-page textbook on the making of
chocolate. With his amazing ability for analysis and investigation, Steinberg
set out to reinvent the way that Americans thought about chocolate. He traveled
the world, sourcing the best beans, interning with French chocolatiers, and
working in his home kitchen using little more than a coffee grinder and a
mortar and pestle until he got the recipe just right.
After teaming up with John Scharffenberger, a former patient who had
owned a winery, Steinberg moved production to a tiny factory in San Francisco,
and then one in Berkeley. It was here that Steinberg produced what Julia Child
would claim was the best chocolate she had tasted in the U.S.
I could go on and on about the ways in which Scharffen Berger Chocolate
revolutionized the market, including being the first American bar to have the
percentage of cacao content, as well as the first bean-to-bar producer of
chocolate since the process had been industrialized. But the point is that
Steinberg explored the world, found what his passion was, filled a niche that
he believed had been empty for far too long, and worked day and night with what
he could manage, all to give the world his absolute best. That is why Robert
Steinberg is my hero.
Oh, and by the way: Remember that life expectancy of ten years? Call it
an act of God, fate, or just plain science, but he lived more than double that,
dying in 2008 at the respectable age of 61. Rest in peace, Robert.
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