Choco-dar first erupted on our multi-country circuit of Europe in a VW van. That adult onset, self-diagnosed radar for chocolate experiences led us serendipitously to many wonderful chocolate discoveries and surprises. In the process I learned some chocolate travel...
![Chocolate Trail Broadens: “Semi[te] Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate” Travels](https://rabbideborahprinz.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_2409.jpg)
I am very excited that the NYCs Bernard Museum exhibit, "Semi[te] Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate" based on my book, On the Chocolate Trail, will now be forging new paths as it travels around the country. We selected On the Chocolate Trail as the book title for a number...
Thank you to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit for the invitation to speak at their event Chocolate, Coffee, and Judaism created in conjunction with the Detroit Institute of Arts exhibit “Bitter|Sweet: Coffee, Tea & Chocolate.” Not only did I have the...
Stories of New Yorkers and their chocolate abound so we followed the chocolate trail there. A long heritage of Brooklyn chocolate production and innovation precedes today’s bean-to-bar, artisanal, and industrial chocolate enterprises. All the way back in the late...
Even before Mark and I got off the F train at the Hudson Yards Station heading to the Javits Center, we spotted folks bejewelled with their red and white Fancy Food Show tags. Earlier in June when I had reviewed the list of chocolate vendors scheduled to be at the...
In Nashville I managed time between my five lectures on the chocolate trail scholar-in-residence to pay homage to Nashville’s homegrown confection, the Goo Goo Cluster. Developed over 100 years ago, the Goo Goo tempted sugar lovers with its innovative combination of...
Finally, there is a “local” American chocolate. In Nashville, Tennessee, no less. Olive & Sinclair Chocolate, Tennessee’s only bean to bar chocolate maker, sources its beans from Ghana and the Dominican Republic. It has found a way to court and reflect a Southern...
Fathers, Dominicans that is, helped bridge the New World’s chocolate to the Old World. In 1544 Padres tantalized the Spanish court with chocolate prepared and presented by a Kekchi Maya delegation of New World natives. Fatherly faith indeed aided in spreading...
In my recent travels speaking about On the Chocolate Trail, I have been able to sample some unusual chocolates and related products. Consider these: Atlanta: From Chef Brulee amazing colors make the bon bons and the matzah very appealing. *Chocoley A...
Chocolate season started on November 1 for Joanne and Jerry Kryszek’s company, Chocosphere. This is the busiest time in their on-line chocolate wholesale and retail company which operates from a warehouse in a Portland suburb. I have known about the company for years...
Love lessons pulsate through Denise Acabo’s chocolate shop, A l’Etoile d’Or, Montmartre, Paris. Baby-faced Denise, who may be in her 80’s, has tended to customers and chocolate for the last 40 years costumed in her braided hair and school-uniform kilt skirt. Against...
Little did I realize when writing On the Chocolate Trail, how eerie the connections between Jews and chocolate might become. My choco-dar (internal radar for chocolate experiences) led me to a hauntingly personal story. In 2009, a very kind scholar, learning of my...
"Did Jews 'Invent' Chocolate?" An Exclusive Interview with Deborah Prinz by Walter Bingam for his radio program “Walter’s World” at Israel National Radio about my book On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals...
On St. Patrick’s Day green chocolate took on a whole new meaning for us. Green-garbed celebrants lined up outside of Boston’s Back Bay bars in the middle of the day as Mark and I walked over the Charles River for a quick chocolate factory tour in nearby Somerville....
Our family Shabbat dinner chocolate-tasting spontaneously turned into a form of kiddush (the blessing using wine which welcomes the Sabbath). In part I was thinking about Jews in Colonial period Mexico who sometimes used drinking chocolate for kiddush when wine was...
Mark and I were in Rockport, Massachusetts, for the wedding of longtime family friends. There, we enjoyed many small world family and Jewish interactions which were profound in some ways and fun as well. We: met the parents of a former boyfriend of a rabbinic...
After trying for weeks to get confirmation for our Rosh HaShanah reservation at the Pines in Fire Island–to pray in a new setting, to be with friends, to be at the beach, to have a break–we decided we had better go to our fall back option: Switzerland! So it was...
“Things are seldom as they seem” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore rang true as we explored England’s chocolate in Oxford, Birmingham, the Lake District and York in March of 2009. Our search for historic and significant chocolate had us schlepping 262 miles to...
The hot chocolate I tasted in December 2009 in Israel struck me as pretty flavorless. At Nona’s lovely chocolate boutique near the King David and YMCA in Jerusalem, the melted marzipan addition compensated for the chocolate deficit. That, in a proudly French style...
Martine’s We recently tagged chocolate field trips to our errands and other excursions. One weekend stroll in the neighborhood took us to Martine’s (East 82nd), a very pricy outlet (not in the discount sense) of the house chocolates molded and sold at Bloomingdale’s...
Last weekend on a stormy June day (2009), Mark and I packed our barely awake Brooklyn based adult kids into a rental car for what our 26 year old called a “family fun day,” an outing to the Gomez Mill House, the oldest extant Jewish homestead in America of 1714 built...
Tired from the long flight from NYC to Mexico City, via Cancun , my energy level spiked as I meandered into a Mayordomo chocolate shop at the airport. Smelling the recently ground chocolate, marveling at the piles of cocoa beans I aimed directly for several small...
In early December of 2006, my husband Mark and I discovered the roots of chocolate Chanukah gelt. That winter we drove a rental car from Brussels to Liege, Belgium, searching for a chocolate museum in the nearby town of Eupen. As we descended the hilly road that took...
Chocolate has entered my life at fun and surprising moments, causing me to suspect cocoa-dar. One such experience occurred as my husband Mark and I traveled in 2006 in our van from Paris south on a small road to Carpentras via the towns of Dijon, Lyons, and Avignon....
Wherever I travel, I seek out chocolate connections with Jews. In the last couple of years, my trips to Belgium, to the southwest of France, to Spain, to Israel, to New England and elsewhere, have revolved around my chocolate research. My interest in Jews on the...
July 13, 2007 Mancerinas in Madrid Back to Madrid, examples of beautiful mancerinas—first developed by the Marques de Mancera (1639-1648) in Peru—displayed at the Museum of Decorative Arts.
July 10, 2007 Ávila There are great pastries here, but this hot chocolate was foul.
July 9, 2007 Burgos In Burgos, a little restaurant recommended by The Lonely Planet and even more…
July 8, 2007 Astorga A chocolate center in the Maragateria area, with at least five chocolate stores crowded on one block. Astorga also hosts another chocolate museum! We wanted to buy this chocolate pot set, but it was not for sale. At stores everywhere these small...
July 6, 2007 Salamanca In Salamanca a Valor store again, one of several all over Spain where the menu offers hot chocolate from a mancerina. Despite trying very hard to find a mancerina or a chocolate pot or both at antique stores, flea markets, other chocolate...
July 5, 2007 Sevilla Is it too hot here for hot chocolate?? Our Cadiz chocolate friend recommended this Sevilla store to us. We, along with others, were very disappointed that it was closed, despite the fact that the hours posted indicated it should be...
July 3, 2007 Cádiz Here we enjoyed the Granizado de Chocolate, chocolatey and refreshing, prepared by the owner, a Russian born Israeli, now living with her Argentinian husband in Spain.
June 28, 2007 Córdoba In Córdoba, almost nothing.
June 27, 2007 Granada More Goodies including chocolate con churros, which we finally tried, and found a bit too greasy for us. After searching quite a bit, we finally discovered this very lovely...
June 26, 2007 Villajoyosa Then to the Valor Chocolate Factory in Villajoyosa. The largest producer of chocolate in Spain, Valor uses very sensual and almost soft core,“adult” oriented pitches to sell the chocolate. We saw Nederland Cacao powder in the...
June 24, 2007 Altea We find chocolate everywhere:
June 24, 2007 Sueca In Valencia Province, the outdoor Sueca city map clearly identifies the Comes Chocolate Museum. Owned by fourth generation Comes family member, Pedro Melero, 400,000 people visit the museum each year. He buys his chocolate from a co-op; they decide...
June 22 - 23, 2007 Valencia We happened upon beautiful chocolate themed ceramics at Santa Catalina Bakery and café, where we hear they have the best chocolate cake in town—
June 21, 2007 Calatayud In Calatayud one store surprisingly features Belgian chocolate, and another shop offers delicious chocolate covered oranges plus other delicacies named for the local ancient ruin, Bilbilis. Poblet...
June 20, 2007 Poblet We had read a text panel at the Barcelona Chocolate Museum explaining that chocolate arrived in Spain in 1520, one year after Cortez arrived in Mexico. A Cistercian monk, Fray Aguilar, shipped chocolate with the recipe to the Monasterio de Piedra...
June 18 - 19, 2007 Barcelona There’s a lot of chocolate here, partly because the 18th century port welcomed ships containing chocolate cargo. It therefore had and still does, chocolate factories and chocolate stores. Some of the chocolate factories do not have...
June 17, 2007 Returning to Spain, to Girona—shucks it's closed on Sunday: But this one's not… We missed this one also, learning about it from The Lonely Planet: Narbonne...
June 15, 2007 …with plenty of additional chocolate options: Carcassonne Girona
June 15, 2007 Carcassonne On to Carcassonne, where these neighboring stores are on the main square: Just inside the medieval walled city, amidst the tourist attractions and souvenir shops, we happily enjoyed hot chocolate, with choies of flavorings again, in a lovely...
June 14, 2007 We did not expect to find chocolate at all, only friends of friends with whom to spend the night and visit. Surprisingly, while searching out the one chocolate store recommended by the local Tourist Office, we found a cluster of stores in the Quartier...
June 10, 2007 The quantity of chocolate in Bayonne more than compensated for the lack in Bilbao. We arrived on Sunday, so we found the chocolate shops closed, sadly, but we did discover an Italian brand of hot chocolate at a local creperie. We planned to hit the three...
June 8, 2007 More hot chocolate (or tepid pudding): as well as chcoloate, covered in the logo of the city here in the pavement: We found one chocolate-only company in Bilbao, Alma de Cacao, open since 2005, with a couple of locations, fancy chocolates and other...
June 7, 2007 However, in this little town with an ancient Roman fortress, for some reason, they serve hot chocolate at limited times. Segovia Bilbao
June 6 - 7, 2007 Here we enjoy our chocolate at a place that also serves teas, coffees and ice creams. Madrid Aguilar de Campóo
June 4, 2007 We start our chocolate tour of Spain with Chocolateria San Ginés in Madrid, with what Steve Reeves calls the best hot chocolate in Spain. It is extremely thick, as if drinking/eating chocolate pudding, and is not served with whipped cream. I learned, as...
Chocolate, Jews and Spain share a long history. Spanish royalty enjoyed the Aztec drink Spanish explorers discovered in the early 1500s. It became so popular in Spain of the 16th and 17th centuries that chocolate houses, like cafés, developed everywhere....
As I am one of those people who can barely manage for only a few days without chocolate, I am surprised to find myself overwhelmed by the amount of chocolate in Belgium. Belgium offers a very intense chocolate experience, with over 2000 chocolate makers and outlets....
Visitors to Israel soon discover the impossibility of seeing all the sites, museums, beaches and stores, despite the small size of the country. A typical tourist visit of a week or two just cannot cover it all . Now, in addition, it is possible to add fun chocolate...
As a confirmed, and perhaps certifiable, chocaholic, I have begun to include exploration of chocolate when I travel. Most recently, on a business trip to Oakland, I enjoyed much delicious chocolate in the East Bay, all located within easy reach for quick fixes....