On the Chocolate Trail

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 tips.  Chocolate travel generated the book and the website that I came to call On the

Published July 13, 2016 at The Forward I happened into a chocolate shop, L’Atelier du Chocolat de Bayonne in Paris in 2006 with my husband. As we were tasting and browsing, I randomly picked up a company brochure. In my high school French, I slowly deciphered this astonishing statement: À Bayonne l’origine de la fabrication

“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 and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao, published by Jewish Lights and now in its second

Surprisingly, according to some chocolate mavens, it may have been Jews in France, known as expert chocolate makers in Bayonne, France, who first developed chocolate Easter eggs. These, they say, were passed around during church services to provide morsels of sustenance. Passover and Easter celebrations share an affinity for eggs as they represent of spring

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 by the Gomez family,

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 Chocolate Trail started with travel. Around the time that

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.