All in good taste as chocolate fans pore over festival
LISBON — Day-trippers from across Portugal enjoyed a tasty treat on Sunday as they descended on Obidos, a hilltop town on the west coast, for a chocolate festival.
The event, which will last until March 18, has been an annual tradition in the town since 2002.
Visitors indulged in cooking displays, workshops, exhibitions and tastings, with dozens of market stalls selling every imaginable chocolate product.
“I just made spaghetti Bolognese out of chocolate, and now we’re going to make a chocolate pizza!” Tiago, 4, enthused as he took part in one of the molecular cooking workshops tailored to families.
He came with his parents, Fred and Lina, from the central city of Fatima. “We’re his sous-chefs,” joked Fred.
Obidos is a picturesque town 80 kilometers north of Lisbon, a jumble of white cottages and cobbled streets contained inside the walls of a medieval castle. As a popular tourist destination, the town organizes events throughout the year, including theme markets and book festivals.
But the event that has the most visitors licking their lips is the International Chocolate Festival. The event began in 2002 when Sandy Lisberg, an US citizen living in Obidos, came up with the idea.
Before the festival, Obidos had no chocolate tradition to speak of. In food and drink terms, it was best known for producing a cherry brandy called ginja.
When the festival started, local traders entered into the spirit of things by making tiny cups out of chocolate and serving ginja from them. These days, no trip to Obidos is complete without drinking ginja from a chocolate cup.
For many visitors, the chocolate sculptures are the highlight of the festival. Once finished, the sculptures are put on display inside a marquee while visitors can watch works-in-progress being made in a windowed studio.
The creations are the responsibility of Brazilian chef Abner Ivan, whose involvement in the festival dates back to 2012.
“The festival committee picks a theme every year,” said Ivan. “This year’s theme is climate change.”
The sculptures include a panda, symbol of the World Wildlife Fund, and a polar bear, whose habitat has been threatened by melting ice caps. Another features the top half of the Statue of Liberty, with the rest submerged beneath rising sea levels, beside the bottom half of the Eiffel Tower, symbolizing a lack of progress on the Paris Agreement.