The secret Jewish history behind your chocolate bar 🍫

The secret Jewish history behind your chocolate bar 🍫

Chocolate has its origins in pre-Columbian Meso-American societies, particularly in the religious ceremonies of the Mayans. Recipes for drinking chocolate from this period connect the deep affinity for chocolate to Central and South American cultures. 

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As Sephardi and Crypto Jews settled in New Spain in the mid-1600s, they became part of the existing chocolate culture, contributing to its development and incorporating chocolate into their culinary traditions. This migration played a role in spreading and shaping chocolate practices in the Americas.

Rabbi Deborah Prinz, the author of “On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals, and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao,” unveils a fascinating nugget about hot chocolate. The original hot chocolate had no milk; that addition came much later with the invention of powdered milk. Even more intriguing, Jews played a significant role in introducing chocolate as a beverage to Europe and various parts of the Americas.

Later in the 1700s (December 16, 1773, to be exact), a group of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed British tea into the Boston Harbor as a protest against unjust taxes. After all the tea was dumped, colonial Americans needed a new drink, which was  when hot chocolate gained popularity. This shift was facilitated by the presence of 18th-century Jewish immigrants, who brought their chocolate making know-how to places like New York and Newport, Rhode Island.

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Source: Kveller