Cioccolato

Chocolate, the substance that has the power to make both children and grown-ups equally happy, is made from the cocoa bean (see Cacao). Lots of refinement and blending, plus the possible incorporation of milk, cream, sugar, vanilla essence and more cocoa butter (the fat extracted from the cocoa bean) are made either industrially or on an artisanal basis. Italy is quite famous for good chocolate, the industry and artisans are spread in all the regions and they mostly use the best-quality cocoa beans from Ecuador, the Ivory Coast and Ghana. A company in Turin, Peyrano, still imports the cocoa beans and makes the very lengthy transformation to produce bars of cioccolato or cioccolatini (small chocolates), with the addition of all sorts of flavourings, such as orange, mint, vanilla and many more. The chocolate is poured by hand into classic moulds, allowed to cool and wrapped in multicoloured metal foil. For specially shaped chocolate, like Easter eggs or bunnies, or Father Christmas, best bitter chocolate is needed to prevent the figures breaking or melting too easily.