Modica chocolate festival – ‘Chocobarocco’
12 November 2011
Modica is one of southern Sicily’s most atmospheric towns, with a medieval centre and spectacular baroque cathedral. However, our trip there, with friends Terry & Sue, wasn’t to sample the cultural highlights of this UNESCO-listed city, we’ll save that for another trip, it was to same the delights of its annual chocolate festival – Chocobarocco.
The Spanish first brought cocoa beans to Sicily and their method of cold grinding the beans with sugar rather than melting the chocolate and sugar together is still the method used today in Modica, resulting in a slightly grainy, crunchy texture.
For the festival, the main street was lined with booths of chocolatiers from all over Italy tempting us with their colourful and delicious displays. I defy anyone to have walked down the main street and not sucumb! As well as traditional chocolate items, there was also an array of more unusual chocolate items including hardware items like hinges, nuts and bolts, hammers, wrenches and pliers; household items like scissors, irons, coffee pots; and chocolate made to look like other foods such as sausages, cheese and bread. However, the most impressive item for me was the chocolate shoes. They were like dainty pieces of art, much too good to eat – really!