Life> no use

Italians seek to seduce gourmet choc fans

(Stuff.com.nz)
Updated: 2007-04-09 14:23

Brought from America to Europe by the Spanish, cocoa became the drink of kings. The Spanish royals passed on the fashion to the French, who in turn initiated the Savoy family of Turin.

But it was Turin's chocolatiers who first wrapped chocolate to prevent oxidation, making lasting chocolates.

And, they say, they even taught the Swiss.

Turin's own Pier Paul Caffarel in 1826 taught the trade to Francois Callier, the pioneer of Switzerland's chocolate industry.

Today Turin's rich and powerful still turn to the city's chocolatiers for special occasions.

Gobino created the centrepiece for the wedding reception of John Elkann, vice-chairman of carmaker Fiat and heir to the Agnelli family empire.

At the reception, 350 chocolate replicas of Fiat's iconic Cinquecento car "drove" down a chocolate ramp to a base of white chocolate and raspberry, two metres wide and four metres long, all of it weighing 160kg.

Marina Cutelle, who two years ago opened Chococult, a three-storey chocolate bar in Milan, said champagne would have been a good choice to wash down that dessert.

Cutelle, who says she eats a pound of hazelnut chocolate in one sitting and offers a variety of wines and liqueurs to match the selection in her bar, said, "A flute of champagne after a milk chocolate gives maximum pleasure."