Festival of Chocolate – Turin
Cioccolato – Annual Chocolate Festival – 22 Feb- 2 March 2008
Turin holds its annual Festival of Chocolate in Feb/Mar 2008. The city is the Italian home of chocolate and the festival will include tastings and cookery demonstrations.
Turin’s annual festival of chocolate - Cioccolato - runs from 22 Feb- 2 March 2008. It’s a great celebration of Italian food with exhibitions, music, events, tours and tastings – all focusing on the dark delicacy – chocolate.
There will even be a Chocolate Factory in Piazza Vittorio Veneto in the heart of the city – where visitors can see the whole process of chocolate production.
Turin has a long association with chocolate. When the city became the capital of the kingdom of Savoy in the 16th century, the ruler served the citizens a symbolic cup of hot chocolate in celebration. The chocolate loving Savoy family made this sweet treat fashionable – and cafes serving chocolate sprang up in the city. By the 19th century Turin was a centre for chocolate production.
The Chocolate Festival – Cioccolato, includes a wide range of cookery demonstrations. Last year those attending learned to cook rack of venison with cocoa beans, or smoked salmon with cocoa, ginger and oranges. They also tasted a new beer made with Venezuelan cocoa; find out how to make pasta with cocoa in sweet pepper sauce; chicken supreme with chocolate and potato tart, or desserts like Canaroli rice with dark chocolate and hazelnut. There were cookery workshops for children too.
Chocolate cake wasn't forgotten. There’ll be comparative tastings of favourite cakes Sacher torte – from Vienna, Sabauda from Turin, and Torta di Pistocchi from Florence.
Among events planned for this year are demonstrations and lessons focused on 'Cru', high quality cocoa from selected plantations, that is used to make special chocolate. There will be a lesson by French chocolate expert Francois Palus.
Visitors can buy a chocopass, which provides coupons for special tastings. There are also special Cioccolato holiday packages available – which include chocolate and milk therapy massages.
More information on Cioccolato from www.cioccola-to.com and on Turin from www.turismotorino.org
Sweet tours of Turin and Turin's Historic Cafes
