The French Love for Chocolate

Unis par l’Amour du Chocolat.

(Poulette en chocolat by Le Roy Renée)

Chocolate today is the favourite food of France!

According to a recent survey of the adult population, 97.8% of the population eat chocolate; 76.4% of them indulge at least once a week and 30.7% of these admit to eating it on a daily basis.This survey also asked the question: What foods it would be impossible for you to live without? i.e. ‘absolument indispensable’– and chocolate was right up there in fourth place- behind bread, fruit, and pasta, but before meat, coffee (!) potatoes and fish.

They start early in the day; popular breakfast choices are a hot chocolate drink,

Jean Paul Hévin

perhaps a pain au chocolat– a buttery pastry with pieces of dark chocolate hidden in the centre,

and bread or toast with Nutella – a sweet rich chocolate/hazlenut spread.

And to finish a meal (always after – not before- cheese) the French have a real love affair with chocolate desserts: chocolate mousses, eclairs, mille feuilles, savarins, soufflés tarts, gateaux, ice creams and macarons.

Ice Cream by Nicolas Bernardé La Poule by Patisserie Picard

So while it is a daily treat- 6.95kg/person bought annually- the festive periods of Christmas and Easter are when the chocolate makers in France are at their busiest: 15,000 tonnes of chocolate are consumed in France in Easter week alone.

Nicolas Bernardé

Specialist chocolate shops abound countrywide – and Paris boasts more than 300 – more than any other city in the world.

Achingly stylish designer chocolates, besides being beautiful to look at and delicious, are even known(?) to have health benefits – traditional French dark chocolate has high cocoa content – 62-86%- so (possibly) good for the cardiovascular system and less butter, cream and sugar so actually less fattening?

Oeuf en dentille de chocolat noir by Paul Hevin

At Easter many patisseries- chocolateries perform real art in creating edible chocolate pieces in different shapes- from the traditional and universal eggs, bunnies and, hens to the particularly French bells and fish (called les fritures de pâques) to avant garde shapes which surprise even the French natives!