Latest news with #Chocolat
AsiaOne
08-06-2025
- AsiaOne
Warning: These World Chocolate Day destinations might melt your heart (and tastebuds), Lifestyle News
Of all that has been said about chocolate, perhaps Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, summed it up perfectly when she wrote, "Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive." For many, the words "chocolate" and "vacation" spark an immediate warmth, conjuring images of delightful indulgence and exciting new discoveries. Perhaps it's a coincidence-or maybe it's sweet destiny-that Wego data over the last 12 months reveals that among GCC travellers, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland are consistently among the top searched destinations in Europe, while Mexico holds a strong position as a leading choice in the Americas. This World Chocolate Day, these beloved locales also double as chocolate havens, where rich traditions and irresistible flavors await discovery. A simple treat, a global celebration On July 7, we celebrate World Chocolate Day, commemorating the historic introduction of chocolate to Europe in the 1500s. This annual tribute isn't just about indulgence-it's about joy, comfort, and the shared memories that chocolate so often stirs. The best way to celebrate World Chocolate Day is to honour traditions and indulge in the deliciousness of cocoa without overthinking it. Other ways World Chocolate Day is celebrated are: Try out a new chocolate recipe. Invite your loved ones to bake or cook with you and make new memories over chocolate. Visit your favourite restaurant or cafe and order your favourite chocolate dessert. Try out a new chocolate that you have never tried before, perhaps from another country. Revisit your favourite classics, or read a new book that involves chocolate. We are particularly partial to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Chocolate Sundae Mystery and Chocolat. Once you've indulged locally, it's time to explore the world's most beloved chocolate destinations. Explore the sweet trails Beyond tasting chocolate at home, why not explore the places where it's deeply woven into local life? From historic cafes to immersive museums, these destinations turn cocoa into an unforgettable cultural experience. Oaxaca City, Mexico Make your way to Oaxaca City, Mexico's chocolate heart and a Unesco World Heritage Site, where the legacy of cacao runs deep. Ancient sites like Monte Albán offer a rich backdrop to this flavourful journey. At markets like 20 de Noviembre and Benito Juárez, vendors grind cacao beans with sugar, almonds, and cinnamon to create soul-warming cups of traditional hot chocolate. Wander into Chocolates La Soledad or stroll Calle Trujano, where shops like Chocolate Mayordomo and Chocolat Bonnat share the street with indie chocolatiers. For a modern twist, sip a cup at the minimalist cafe Mamá Pacha Chocolate, Instagram-worthy and indulgent. Barcelona, Spain While we don't know exactly who first brought cocoa beans to Europe, historians agree they arrived in Spain in the late 1500s - a precious "food of the Gods" from Central America. Today, vibrant Spain, renowned for its beaches, flamenco, and cuisine, is also a haven for chocolate lovers, with Barcelona shining as a key destination. Indulge your senses on a dedicated chocolate tasting tour, where you'll sample diverse flavors like a seasoned connoisseur. Or, chart your own sweet day starting at Barcelona's Museu de la Xocolata. This "sweet sanctuary" tells the tale of chocolate, from its sacred origins in Mesoamerican ceremonies to its decadent rise in European salons. Wander among whimsical chocolate sculptures or roll up your sleeves in a hands-on workshop, molding cocoa dreams into reality. It's a delicious blend of history, art, and just the right amount of mischief. Turin, Italy Italy embraced chocolate with unmatched passion after its introduction from Spain in the late 1500s, and today, Turin remains at the heart of this sweet legacy. This Piedmontese city invites chocolate lovers to savour centuries-old delicacies like luxurious truffles, velvety pralines, and indulgent gelato. Iconic cafes such as Pfatisch, Stratta, and the historic Caffé Al Bicerin enchant visitors with their timeless charm, serving unique creations like chocolate-infused coffee and the decadent 18th-century treat Merenda Reale. For an experience "one for the books," step onto Turin's Choco Tram on June 15, 2025. Glide through old cobblestone streets, tasting delightful giandujotti while storytellers share enchanting tales. At Choco-Story Torino, the Museum of Chocolate and Gianduja, every delicious bite transports you deeper into Turin's captivating chocolate past. Paris, France Paris proudly stands as one of the world's chocolate capitals, a far cry from its 17th-century origins when chocolate was a rare aristocratic indulgence. Today, its allure has solidified its place in Parisian gastronomy. Experience this regal history at iconic houses like Debauve & Gallais, suppliers to Queen Marie Antoinette, or step back in time at À la Mère de Famille. The city is also sprinkled with prestigious chocolatiers such as Jean-Paul Hevin, Patrick Roger, Jacques Genin, and La Maison du Chocolat, each offering indulgent creations from daring ganaches to timeless pralines. For an unparalleled celebration, plan your autumn visit around Le Salon du Chocolat (Oct 29 to Nov 2, 2025). As the world's largest chocolate event, it's a five-day festival of magic-complete with workshops, tastings, live demos, and a unique chocolate haute couture runway. It's a delicious reminder that in Paris, chocolate is truly a cultural celebration. Brussels, Belgium From the people who modernized the chocolate, we take our journey to the present chocolate capital of the world and the heart of Belgium-Brussels. Every corner of Brussels has its own tale to tell, with chocolatiers and their chocolates. We recommend taking a gastronomic walking tour to experience Brussels's best choco magic. However, you can also skip to the Belgian Chocolate Village in Koekelberg and learn about the history of chocolates before indulging in a demonstration of how chocolates are made in Choco-Story Brussels. Another unique experience you ought to indulge in is taking a chocolate-making class from master chocolatiers. Several places in Brussels offer chocolate-making classes to tourists, like Choco-Story Brussels, Belgian Chocolate Village, Planète Chocolat, and Belgian Chocolate Workshop. We recommend registering for the workshops on the official website of the chocolate places before visiting for a smooth experience. Fribourg, Switzerland As the renowned homeland of Lindor and the historic home of Toblerone, Switzerland stands as perhaps the most famous country for chocolate and a must-visit for any food enthusiast. Broc in the Gruyère district of Fribourg canton is one of the most notable stops in Switzerland for chocoholics. It is home to the Chocolate Museum of Maison Cailler, where you can learn about the history of the famous Chocolat Cailler, witness the chocolate-making process, and taste it. Finally, you get an "all-you-can-eat selection of Cailler chocolates" and join a chocolate-making class before leaving Atelier du Chocolat. If time constraints cause a hindrance between you and the Turin Choco Tram, then you have an entire train waiting for you in Gruyère. Le Train du Chocolat, or the Chocolate Train, runs between Montreux and the Cailler-Nestle chocolate factory at Broc, offering a seven to eight hour scenic train ride through the Swiss countryside, accompanied by coffee and chocolate croissants, a free show at La Maison du Gruyère, and a free admission to the chocolate factory of Nestle Cailler. Birmingham, UK While Birmingham or the UK might not immediately spring to mind for iconic chocolate destinations, this is the beloved homeland of Cadbury! Our chocolate exploration wouldn't be complete without a delightful detour to the enchanting Cadbury World in Bournville. Home to the UK's largest Cadbury store, this immersive attraction offers a journey through chocolate heaven. If you're a fan of the classic Bournville chocolate bar, you'll be thrilled to discover that the charming town of Bournville is home to Cadbury World - an immersive attraction offering a journey through chocolate heaven, complete with the UK's largest Cadbury store. We can imagine Cadbury World as this vibrant, chocolate-themed entertainment zone set up for us to uncover the fascinating Cadbury story through engaging presentations and even a 4D cinema experience. Journey through a captivating Aztec Jungle to learn the ancient origins of the cocoa bean, and snap some fun pictures in front of the Cadbury green screen. If little adventurers are accompanying you, they are bound to be thrilled with the African Adventure Play Area, a dedicated space for them to explore and play. To ensure your chocolatey escapade begins smoothly, remember to pre-book your tickets online through the official Cadbury World website. Ready for your sweet escape? Our exploration of the world's chocolate havens ends here, but your adventure is just beginning. This World Chocolate Day, discover how each destination offers a unique taste of global culture and unforgettable memories. Bon voyage, and sweet travels! [[nid:718222]] This article was first published in Wego .
BBC News
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bookclub Joanne Harris: Chocolat
Led by presenter James Naughtie, the writer Joanne Harris takes questions from a BBC Bookclub audience on her best-selling novel, Chocolat. Published in 1999, the book follows the character of Vianne Rocher, a chocolate-maker and sometime witch, who arrives in the village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes with her six-year-old daughter Anouk at the beginning of Lent and opens a chocolaterie opposite the church. Francis Reynaud, the local priest, disapproves of her instantly and Vianne's arrival polarizes the villagers. The book sold over a million copies in the UK and won the Creative Freedom and Whitaker Gold awards. It was later turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Producer: Dom Howell Editor: Gillian Wheelan This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Bestselling Chocolat author JOANNE HARRIS on the disgusting quip Harvey Weinstein made to her at the Oscars
Sometime in 2000, the French actress Juliette Binoche travelled to Barnsley, West Yorkshire. She was there to meet Joanne Harris – then a schoolteacher who published novels on the side. The film rights to her third book, Chocolat, had been sold to Hollywood and Binoche had signed on to play the heroine, Vianne. She asked Harris if she could visit her, to chat about the part. 'Juliette came to stay in our two-bedroom semi in Barnsley,' recalls Harris. 'We didn't have a spare bedroom, so she slept in our kid's bed, tucked up with a toy dinosaur.' Today, Chocolat – a sensuous tale of a woman causing mayhem by opening a chocolaterie selling such delights as 'nipples of Venus' in a sleepy French town – has sold some 35 million copies worldwide. That makes Harris one of the authors to have joined the elite 'millionaire's club' – writers who have sold more than one million copies of at least one of their novels in the UK (others include JK Rowling, Julia Donaldson, Helen Fielding and Kate Mosse). This week, Harris publishes Chocolat's prequel, Vianne, which is why we are meeting at her home. I imagine the 60-year-old in a Mayfair penthouse. Instead, she and her husband Kevin, whom she met at Barnsley sixth-form college aged 16 and who now works as her business manager, live in a gorgeous but ramshackle five-bedroom Victorian house outside Huddersfield. It's 18 miles from where she was born, packed with quirky objects and backs on to five acres of woodland, where Harris writes in a converted shed. 'My mother thinks it's dreadful – she says it's old and messy,' laughs Harris. 'But I see no reason to leave Yorkshire. My family and friends are nearby, and staying here has kept me grounded. 'We have a little flat in London, which is very useful as I go up and down a lot. Apart from that I don't really have any indulgences. I don't splash out on fast cars and diamonds.' The daughter of an English father and French mother – both teachers, who raised her bilingual – Harris was born above her paternal grandparents' corner shop in Barnsley. 'They spoke no French and my grandparents in France spoke no English, so it made me an outsider wherever I went.' She longed to write, but her mother was horrified. 'She showed me all these books by 19th-century French authors who died penniless and said: 'This is not a proper job.'' So, after studying modern and medieval languages at Cambridge, Harris became a trainee accountant, but within a year she failed her exams and was sacked. After that, she worked as a French teacher at an all-boys' private school. Between teaching and raising her son Fred – now 30 and working as a lighting technician in London – she wrote constantly. Her first book, The Evil Seed, was published in 1992. 'It was a literary vampire novel, read by about 20 people. I was paid about £2,000 for it.' Her second novel, Sleep, Pale Sister, similarly sank without trace. Undeterred, she began drafting a third, set in France, full of lavish descriptions of elaborate meals. She sent it to a bigwig New York agent for feedback. 'He said, 'Who the hell wants to read about some French village nobody's heard of? Why are there so many old people and no young people having sex on a bearskin rug? And what's with all the food?'' Many authors would have been crushed. Not Harris. 'Most things I do are motivated by the desire to annoy people, so I wrote exactly the book that agent told me not to write.' In four months, she'd completed Chocolat. Initially, the agent was vindicated: no publisher wanted it. Harris went on holiday to Ireland. Only when she checked in on her mother did she learn her British agent was urgently trying to reach her from the international Frankfurt Book Fair. 'I called her, she said: 'Everyone is talking about Chocolat.' First the Italians bought it, then everyone followed.' Within a week, the book was sold to 23 countries and film rights sold for £5,000 (after its cinematic release Harris received a further £100,000 in royalties). 'None of the deals were big bucks but together were enough for me to take some time off teaching.' She asked for a year's sabbatical, only for the book to become a word-of-mouth bestseller. 'I kept seeing people reading it on the tube; I thought, 'This is crazy!'' After the film's release and Oscar nomination, sales topped one million. 'I realised I wasn't going back to teaching. When I told the school, they said, 'We all knew that. We've given your job to someone else.'' Newfound fame was often overwhelming. 'I passed out at two premieres and the Baftas. One minute I'd be fine and the next… my word! I thought something was wrong with me but now I think it was just stress; after a year it stopped.' At the Oscars, wearing a borrowed red Amanda Wakeley dress, she was seated beside Sigourney Weaver and behind Clint Eastwood. Despite the glamour, Harris was bored. 'It was like a very long school speech day at Madame Tussaud's, with diamonds.' She encountered Johnny Depp, a star of Chocolat who hadn't been on the film set when she'd visited. 'People kept asking for my thoughts on him, but as I'd never met him I said, 'He's not my type.' Then I met him on the red carpet. He said, 'Apparently I'm not your type.' But he was laughing.' Harris was surprised at how nervous Depp was. 'I used to think I was the most awkward person in the room until I met him. We bonded over that. I don't think he enjoyed being a sex symbol. From his work, and from what he said to me that brief time we met, I got the feeling he was on a mission to be somebody other than who he was.' (Depp has since been mired in controversy due to his high-profile court battle with ex-wife Amber Heard. On this, Harris says: 'I don't know what happened, it sounds traumatic for everyone.') At a Bafta party she encountered Chocolat's producer, Harvey Weinstein, now serving a 16-year prison sentence for rape. 'He said, 'I'm Harvey Weinstein, when I come into a room, authors s**t their pants.' I said, 'In that case, Harvey, you'll get my dry-cleaning bill.' He laughed and moved on. I got the feeling he liked it when people stood up to him.' After the menopause and surviving breast cancer in 2020, Harris says little intimidates her. Yet she avoids controversy, declining to discuss her announcement, two years ago on Twitter, that her son, Fred, is transgender, merely saying, 'Somebody had tried to out [Fred] on Twitter and was trying to blackmail me.' (She also won't be drawn on her spell as chair of the Society of Authors, when she became embroiled in a Twitter spat with JK Rowling, who had complained that Harris had never communicated with her about the death and rape threats she'd received from transgender activists.) After selling 30-plus million copies of a single novel, many authors might have put their feet up. But in the 26 years since Chocolat came out, Harris has published 29 more books, from fantasies to thrillers. There have also been three well-received sequels to Chocolat. Now there's Vianne, which gives insights into her witch-like heroine's youth. 'I thought it'd be fun to go back and see Vianne when she couldn't cook and had never really tasted chocolate. Many people assume she is me, but I rarely invite people to dinner and if I do the food's a bit experimental as I rarely stick to a recipe. Vianne also has an itch to keep moving. I like to stay in my shed in Yorkshire and write.'
Scottish Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Win a copy of Vianne by Joanne Harris in this week's Fabulous book competition
IRRESISTIBLE READ Win a copy of Vianne by Joanne Harris in this week's Fabulous book competition Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) MORE than 25 years after it came out, Chocolat is still one of our fave books (plus we loved the Juliette Binoche film). So, this prequel went straight to the top of our list! Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 10 lucky Fabulous readers will win a copy of this new novel in this week's book competition When pregnant Vianne arrives in Marseille and gets a job as a waitress, she discovers the joy of cooking and creating recipes. 10 lucky Fabulous readers will win a copy of this new novel in this week's book competition. To win a copy, enter using the form below by 11:59pm on May 31, 2025. For full terms and conditions, click here.
The Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Win a copy of Vianne by Joanne Harris in this week's Fabulous book competition
MORE than 25 years after it came out, Chocolat is still one of our fave books (plus we loved the Juliette Binoche film). So, this prequel went straight to the top of our list! 1 When pregnant Vianne arrives in Marseille and gets a job as a waitress, she discovers the joy of cooking and creating recipes. 10 lucky Fabulous readers will win a copy of this new novel in this week's book competition. To win a copy, enter using the form below by 11:59pm on May 31, 2025. For full terms and conditions, click here.
