The Munchies Blog

One thing to visit when you’re in Cologne is, of course, its famous Cathedral.

But as this is a foodblog, even the most impressive Gothic architecture is more than slightly off-topic. What’s more interesting in this context is that Cologne also has a chocolate museum.

One part of the museum shows the process of making chocolate, from the cocoa plants to various cocoa-based products. This includes a small greenhouse (which you can safely leave out if you’ve ever been to a greenhouse before). Another part shows historic devices used for chocolate consumption — mainly mugs and bowls from the Maya, Aztecs and Olmecs and special chocolate pots (like a teapot, just for chocolate) and cups from the 18th century.

The part I personally like best is the working chocolate production area. In this area, you can watch (and smell!) chocolates being made. There also is a chocolate fountain where they hand out small waffle pieces dipped in warm chocolate. I remember that on my first visit to the museum (I must have been around 14), my best friend and I swapped jackets after getting waffle pieces for the second time whithin 5 minutes because we thought they then wouldn’t remember us when we came back for a third time…

The last time I was there, they also had a temporary exhibition on the history of associating chocolate with erotic settings (like in Baroque paintings), which was fairly interesting (and perfectly family-safe, in case you’re wondering).

Officially called "Imhoff-Stollwerck-Museum" after the chocolate manufacturer Stollwerck, a large part of the exhibition areas has a strong focus on the products and the history of this company. This includes chocolate advertisements from the 19th and 20th century and some old chocolate vending machines. While these might be interesting for some visitors, they take away space that could have been dedicated to — exactly, chocolate ;) Together with the rather high entrance fees (currently, 6 € for adults and 3.50 € for students etc.), this left me slightly disappointed. Parts of the museum just feel more like an interactive advertisement for Stollwerck than like a place to learn more about chocolate.

Even if you’re not interested in the museum itself, it might be worthwile to go there: The museum’s shop (accessible without paying entrance fees) has a nice assortment of chocolate and usually also an interesting assortment of confused tourists from various countries. Be prepared to leave some money there — the prices are normal compared to other shops, but if you’re like me, there are just so many things you want to have ;)

The chocolate museum is located on an artificial peninsula in the Rhine (map) and can easily be reached on foot from the cathedral by walking southwards along the Rhine for some 15 minutes.

This entry was posted by Andrea on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Chocolate, Places. You can use the comment feed to keep track of comments to this entry, or trackback from your own blog.