The Chocolate King

Benjamin loves chocolate. He also knows a lot about it. But one person knows more - his grandfather Marco, otherwise known as the Chocolate King. Benjamin’s family arrive in France at the beginning of the 17th century, having escaped the Spanish Inquisition. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs and as many cocoa beans as they can carry. Back in Spain, Benjamin’s grandfather Marco was El Rey de Chocolate, famed for his delicious hot chocolate drink, a recipe he claims he learned from an intrepid Spanish explorer. But now, if the family are to make a living, they must persuade the people of France to fall in love with Marco’s strange mud-colored concoction. Benjamin is desperate to help, dreaming that he might grow up to wear the Chocolate King crown. Then, one day, Benjamin causes chaos in the kitchen. Covered head-to-toe in chocolate, he stumbles into the street and straight into the path of the real King - the King of France. Finally, the family get the breakthrough they need, and all of Benjamin’s dreams start to come true.

Benjamin loves chocolate. He also knows a lot about it. But one person knows more - his grandfather Marco, otherwise known as the Chocolate King. Benjamin’s family arrive in France at the beginning of the 17th century, having escaped the Spanish Inquisition. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs and as many cocoa beans as they can carry. Back in Spain, Benjamin’s grandfather Marco was El Rey de Chocolate, famed for his delicious hot chocolate drink, a recipe he claims he learned from an intrepid Spanish explorer. But now, if the family are to make a living, they must persuade the people of France to fall in love with Marco’s strange mud-colored concoction. Benjamin is desperate to help, dreaming that he might grow up to wear the Chocolate King crown. Then, one day, Benjamin causes chaos in the kitchen. Covered head-to-toe in chocolate, he stumbles into the street and straight into the path of the real King - the King of France. Finally, the family get the breakthrough they need, and all of Benjamin’s dreams start to come true.

In seventeenth-century Spain, Benjamin and his family leave for France to escape religious persecution, but in France Benjamin's dreams of making chocolate seem bleak until a chance encounter with the King of France. Includes a history of chocolate, the Jewish community, and a recipe for hot chocolate.

Discover the history of chocolate in Jewish food and culture with this unique recipe book, bringing together individual recipes from more than fifty noted Jewish bakers. This is the perfect book for chocoholics, anyone keen to grow their repertoire of chocolate-based recipes, or those with an interest in the diverse ways that chocolate is used around the world. Highlights include Claudia Roden’s Spanish hot chocolate, the Gefilteria’s dark chocolate and roasted beetroot ice-cream, Honey & Co’s marble cake and Joan Nathan’s chocolate almond cake. As well as recipes for sweet-toothed readers, savory dishes include Alan Rosenthal’s chocolate chilli and Denise Phillips' Sicilian caponata. There are also delicious naturally gluten-free and vegan recipes to cater to a variety of dietary requirements. Each recipe helps provide an insight into the important role chocolate has played in Jewish communities across the centuries, from Jewish immigrants and refugees taking chocolate from Spain to France in the 1600s, to contemporary Jewish bakers crossing continents to discover, adapt and share new chocolate recipes for today’s generation. Babka, Boulou & Blintzes is a unique collection published in conjunction with the British Jewish charity Chai Cancer Care.

Did you know that coffee was recommended as protection against the bubonic plague in the seventeenth century? Or that tea was believed to make men 'unfit to do their business' and blamed for women becoming unattractive? On the other hand, a cup of chocolate was supposed to have exactly the opposite effect on the drinker's sex life and physical appearance. These three beverages arrived in England in the 1650s from faraway, exotic places: tea from China, coffee from the Middle East and chocolate from Mesoamerica. Physicians, diarists and politicians were quick to comment on their supposed benefits and alleged harmfulness, using newspapers, pamphlets and handbills both to promote and denounce their sudden popularity. Others seized the opportunity to serve the growing appetite for these newly discovered drinks by setting up coffee houses or encouraging one-upmanship in increasingly elaborate tea-drinking rituals.How did the rowdy and often comical initial reception of these drinks form the roots of today's enduring caffeine culture? From the tale of the goatherd whose animals became frisky on coffee berries to a duchess with a goblet of poisoned chocolate, this book, illustrated with eighteenth-century satirical cartoons and early advertisements, tells the extraordinary story of our favourite hot drinks.

D'Antonio pens the first full biography of one of the most successful and unusual business titans of the 20th century--Milton Hershey--and a startling history of how his commanding fortune shaped a unique utopian legacy.

The god Kukulkan decides to give the Mayan people the gift of chocolate, the favorite food of the gods, but when Kukulkan 's brother Night Jaguar tells the other gods what he has done Kukulkan is banned from paradise forever.

A biography of the man whose faltering beginnings in candy making eventually resulted in a chocolate business known throughout the world.