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Favorite Chocolate Shops in Italy
With Valentine’s Day, thoughts turn to chocolate. Here’s an excerpt from “100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go” to help you find the best places for chocolate in Italy…
“Let them eat chocolate,” was the kind proclamation of Madama Reale.
The year was 1678. Madama Reale was thirty years old, widowed, with a boy to raise, and had become the ruler of the Piedmont region in northern Italy. She took her job seriously and carried on major beautiful changes to the city during her reign , continuing in the tradition her husband had began, remodeling the Palazzo Madama into pretty French style.
In Madama Reale’s day chocolate was a precious novelty served only to royalty and priests. It had come to Italy through the Spanish explorer Cortez, who found it in South America.
When a Turin baker asked Madame Reale’s permission to make chocolate for regular folk, I imagine she figured, “Why not?” She probably needed the seritonin fix to deal with the hassles of being a female ruler and wanted to pass on the high to keep her popularity ratings up.
