1 cup boiling water
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2–4 tablespoons sugar
teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1
teaspoon ground cloves and/or ground nutmeg
3 cups scalded milk (see note)
………
VIKING, 1999
(available in paperback from Penguin, 2000)
CHOCOLAT BEGINS with the arrival of Vianne Rocher, a single mother, and her six-year-old daughter, Anouk, in the tiny old-fashioned French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes in the 1950s. In a blatant contradiction to the austere Lenten fast, Vianne opens La Céleste Praline, a shop featuring mouthwatering chocolate confections and luscious hot chocolate drinks.
With the exception of eighty-year-old Armande Voizin, the village’s eldest resident, a self-proclaimed witch who quickly befriends Vianne and Anouk, the villagers are not welcoming. The straitlaced, gossipy locals are wary of Vianne. The stern parish priest, Francis Reynaud, quickly takes offense at the chocolaterie’s location opposite the village church, finding the shop’s indulgences at odds with the modesty and piety he preaches. Reynaud deems “the concentration of sweetness” unwholesome, as he tries to avoid the temptation of gazing at shelves of confections and inhaling “bewildering scents” emanating from across the street.
Vianne, a sorceress’s daughter who shares her mother’s distrust of the clergy, further affronts Reynaud when she makes it clear that she does not attend church. Despite Reynaud’s cautions to the villagers and attempts to curb her “pernicious” influence, Vianne draws many of them into the chocolaterie with her gift for knowing the favorite chocolate of each customer—“like a fortune teller reading palms.”
One by one the troubled townsfolk, such as Guillaume Duplessis, concerned about his ailing dog, and the battered wife Joséphine Muscat, are transformed. As they abandon themselves to temptation and find their taste for pleasure in chocolate brazils and double-chocolate truffles that melt in their mouths, their secrets and troubles seem to melt away. Love is reawakened and hidden yearnings unlocked. Reynaud even discovers his parishioners, their appetites for pleasure and happiness aroused, eating chocolates during confession.
When Vianne announces a Grand Festival of Chocolate, to commence Easter Sunday, Reynaud considers this the ultimate insult to the Catholic church and a mockery of everything the holiday stands for. His campaign against the chocolate shop leads to a confrontation between the austere priest and his villagers.
Vianne pours steaming mugs of hot chocolate throughout Chocolat. On La Céleste Praline’s opening day, her pot of chocolat chaud sits untouched as she and Anouk wait for customers. They finally help themselves to a cup, Anouk’s topped with crème chantilly and chocolate curls and, for Vianne, black chocolate “stronger than espresso.” As the villagers warm to her chocolate, Vianne knows just which cocoa will tantalize each patron: for Roux, who is a river Gypsy, black chocolate laced with Kahlúa; for Joséphine, chocolate espresso with cognac and chocolate chips. As Armande tastes her mocha with a splash of Kahlúa, she comments, “This is better than anything I remember, even from childhood.”
The smell of warm chocolate simmering on the stove filled the house all day as Hope Roel prepared for the Literary Society of San Diego’s Chocolat meeting. “Chocolat was a sensuous feast for our literary society,” says Roel, who loves to bake with chocolate. Roel whipped up an assortment of treats: chocolate fondue, brownies, and rich, thick hot cocoa made from scratch.
Roel prepared cocoa following a recipe from The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker (New American Library, 1964). Roel says she served this classic recipe for cocoa with whipped cream and Kahlúa, a Mexican coffee liqueur, topped with grated chocolate shavings to emulate the coffee bar atmosphere and hot chocolate offerings at La Céleste Praline. We’re sure it will warm the souls of your book club when you sit down to discuss Chocolat.
NOTE: To scald milk, heat the milk in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat. Stir occasionally, bringing milk just below the boiling point. When bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan, remove from heat.
1 cup boiling water ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2–4 tablespoons sugar
|
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 3 cups scalded milk (see note) |
Fill the bottom of a double boiler half full of water. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Combine the boiling water, cocoa, sugar, and salt in the top of a double boiler. Place top directly over the heat source and stir for 2 minutes over low heat.
Add the cinnamon, cloves, and/or nutmeg and place top over the bottom of the double boiler. Add the milk; stir and heat through. Cover the cocoa and keep over hot water for 10 more minutes. Beat with a wire whisk before serving.
Yield: 4 servings
When Vianne caters Armande Voizin’s birthday party, she prepares Chocolate Fondue for dessert. “Make it on a clear day—cloudy weather dims the gloss on the melted chocolate,” says Vianne in the novel. She also recommends dipping cake and fruit in the chocolate mixture.
Hope Roel sliced strawberries, along with bananas, croissants, breads, and other dippables for the fondue. Her recipe, from Natalie Haughton’s 365 Great Chocolate Desserts (HarperCollins, 1996), is simple and delicious, perfect for any weather.
1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate 1 cup heavy cream 2 tablespoons rum |
Strawberries, bananas, pineapple, croissant, or cake, cut into bite-size pieces |
In a 2-quart nonmetal bowl, combine the chocolate and heavy cream. Microwave on high power until the chocolate is melted when stirred, 2–2½ minutes. Heat an additional 1–1H minutes, until warm throughout. Stir in the rum. Transfer to fondue pot and keep warm until ready to serve.
Yield: 8 servings
“You name it, we have it,” says member Diana Girard of her No Boys Allowed (NBA) Reading Circus Book Club in Miami, whose members are Cuban, Cuban-American, Venezuelan, Costa Rican, Jewish, and Anglo-Saxon. Girard says diversity adds much to their discussions, which usually revolve around contemporary fiction.
Joanne Harris’s Chocolat was selected by meeting host Patricia Giralt simply because she loves chocolate, but it became a favorite of the NBA. Chocolat’s juxtaposition of good and evil was a major conversation topic. “Vianne Rocher opens a chocolate shop across from a church,” says Jacquie Valdespino, “and this simple act highlights the conflicts between good and evil, between saints and sinners, that run throughout the book. The local priest finds the ‘pleasure’ of chocolate an act of defiance against the Church, and when Vianne announces her Easter Chocolate Festival, it becomes an all-out war.”
NBA members could not understand the priest’s maliciousness. “We wondered why a French priest would be concerned about a chocolate shop, in a country filled with chocolate shops,” says Valdespino.
Deborah White-Labora, a judge serving in the Domestic Violence Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, offered insight into the character of Joséphine, the battered wife in the novel. Like many victims of domestic violence, Joséphine withstood humiliation that escalated to physical violence. As White-Labora explained, Joséphine found her “safe space” within the chocolate shop, surrounded by inviting confections.
Valdespino says the discussion stimulated their chocolate cravings, and after the discussion, the NBA indulged in a mini–chocolate festival featuring bonbons and French crêpes. “The story is irresistible,” says Valdespino. “Much like chocolate, it has many layers and all are delicious.”
In Waco, Texas, the Black Madonna Book Group members brought family recipes that had been handed down as well as newer chocolate creations for their Chocolat feast. Juli Rosenbaum made her secret dark-chocolate cake, a rich dessert made with Kahlúa and topped with chocolate frosting that Rosenbaum says “has evolved over the years at my house.” The Black Madonnas also enjoyed coffee ice-cream pie made with an Oreo-cookie crust, coffee ice cream, whipped cream with Kahlúa, and hot fudge sauce—this from Julie Burleson, who, along with club member Suzy Nettles, runs the Mud Pie Cooking School for children in Waco.
For her Contemporary Book Discussion Club’s Chocolat get-together, Carol Goewey of Tempe, Arizona, served Godiva chocolates, chocolate-covered nuts and pretzels, chocolate cookies, and cocoa. She also made chocolate dirt cake from a recipe she uses for her children’s birthday parties: fill small plastic dishes with chocolate pudding, top with a few gummy worms, and sprinkle with “dirt”—crumbled Oreo cookies. “I thought it would be fun to serve this cake to my grown-up friends,” says Goewey.
