Still Hungry? Find Bliss at N.Y. Chocolate Fair

NEW YORK —  On a day when the Thanksgiving feeding frenzy traditionally gives way to frantic Christmas shopping, a national chocolate show opened here Friday for a five-day run.

The Chocolate Show, modeled after an event begun in Paris four years ago that draws 80,000 people a year, features names synonymous with chocolate, like Godiva and Perugina, as well as local mom-and-pop retailers such as Greenwich Village’s Li-Lac and Brooklyn’s Alexandra & Nicolay.

“The ‘creme de la creme’ of the chocolate world is here,” guest lecturer and pastry authority Rose Levy Beranbaum noted.

But, tragically, a full-size Formula 1 racing car made entirely of chocolate and flown in from Paris--planned as one of the show’s highlights--arrived at the hall looking like a casualty of a Monaco Grand Prix crash.

The car, which weighed about 250 pounds and was manufactured by chocolatier Pascal Gurreau of La Route du Cacao, actually survived the transatlantic crossing intact, the show’s organizers said.

But New York is apparently still a tough town, and the journey from Kennedy International Airport to Manhattan’s SoHo district proved too much. The car arrived smashed into a heap of chocolate debris.

Organizers said it was not known how the car had been destroyed but noted it was insured.

Other displays, such as a chocolate corset and a gown topped with chocolate “feathers,” arrived intact and appeared to be holding up under the hot lights.

The show also features demonstrations, cooking lessons for children and sculptures of a swordfish or the Concorde airliner rendered in white chocolate by chefs from top New York restaurants.

Vendors ranged from names practically synonymous with chocolate, like Godiva and Dove, to the Chocohotel in Perugia, a three-star Tuscan retreat where each floor is dedicated to milk chocolate, dark chocolate or hazelnut-chocolate cream. Its restaurant incorporates the dark sweet into a wide range of dishes. Perugia, not by coincidence, is home to Perugina, famous for its chocolate kisses.

For the chocoholic who has everything, there was Richart’s burlwood chocolate vault, with six drawers of the high-end confectioner’s bonbons for $670.

Among the more enthusiastic vendors were Alexandra and Nicolay Mazhirov, who emigrated to Brooklyn from the Ukraine.

While studying “chocolatology” at the Institute of Baking and Confectionery in Odessa, Alexandra Mazhirov located recipes from the court of the Romanovs. In 1995 the couple began turning out handmade, boutique confections with names like Rasputin’s Wafers and Anastasia’s Delight.

The Commerce Department estimates that each American eats more than 11 pounds of chocolate per year--no match for the Swiss, who down nearly 21 pounds a year.