Chocolate Festival

Need I say more? This is the 6th year that Florence has held its annual Chocolate Festival in Piazza Santa Croce in the weeks leading up to Carnevale which is held in Venice beginning the two weeks before Ash Wednesday and goes until Shrove Tuesday (better known as Mardi Gras). The chocolate festival began on February 4th and although the website says it ends on the 7th, I took this chocolate fountain picture today, the 9th. Maybe it will go on forever…wishful thinking.

At the Festival, dozens of chocolateers are gathered under the circus-like white tents in the Piazza selling their sweets. You can ask for an “assagio”, or a taste of a chocolate before you buy it…or just continue asking for assagios at every station. My favorite were these chocolate fountains where you could pick a type of skewer (banana, strawberry, grape, or a marshmellowy-looking Italian candy) to be drowned in white, milk, or dark chocolate. I picked a dark chocolate drenched strawberry skewer and munched away in bliss as I wandered the Piazza.

A pleasant surprise appeared to my over-sweetened taste buds when I came across a focaccia station serving up freshly baked rosemary and olive oil, mozzarella and tomato, and pesto and pecorino focaccias. What a great idea! After all the chocolate assagios a savory, warm, cheesy, pesto focaccia was exactly what I needed. Needless to say, it was phenomenal.

The memory of this focaccia melting in my mouth reminds me of a discovery I have made about what most people consider pizza crust in the United States. All the best pizza and foccacia I have had here is soft and doughy, never crisp or thin like they serve in the states. But although I’ve always been a supporter of crispy, bubbly crust, the soft doughy Italian way may change my perspective forever.