Chocolate Welcomes Us to Spain
Chocolate, Jews and Spain share a long history. Spanish royalty enjoyed the Aztec drink Spanish explorers discovered in the early 1500s. It became so popular in Spain of the 16th and 17th centuries that chocolate houses, like cafés, developed everywhere. Similar houses still exist today in most of Spain’s major cities.
Spaniards guarded their production of chocolate secrets for decades, controlling cocoa production and trade in the Americas, as well as cocoa exports to Europe. Indeed, Spain’s conquest of the New World brought chocolate to Europe, then returned it to America transformed into candy.
Because the discovery of chocolate and the Spanish Inquisition along with the expulsion of Jews from Spain coincided, the Jewish connection to chocolate in this period was primarily through Conversos. As we traveled through the Jewish historic sites of Spain, we investigated any further connections of Jews with chocolate in Madrid, Astorga, Valencia and Barcelona.
We learned that in Spain there’s a route for just about everything—a silver route, the Camino del Santiago de Compestela, the El Cid Road but surprisingly not yet a chocolate route. So this report attempts to compensate for that “deficiency.” This is the chocolate route we created in Spain and Southwest France in June and July, 2007. Rabbi Prinz & Rabbi Hurvitz Tour Spain in Search of Jews and Chocolate.
Recent Posts
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On the Chocolate Trail in Bariloche, Argentina
In March, Mark and I finally extended our chocolate trail explorations in celebration of our special anniversary to Bariloche…via Miami, Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Antarctica, and Buenos Aires again. There were international flights, a cruise, a couple of domestic flights to get there. All of the travel was amazing, but Bariloche, sometimes called the chocolate capital
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Sunday Yeast Polemics: On the Bread Trail
Leavened bread or not? While some of us may think of Passover, the question applied to Eucharistic bread and created significant division in the early Christian Church. The leavened bread for Sunday use was often baked at home by women. Over time, preferences shifted to clergy, church-produced, breads… and, the Eastern Orthodox Church preferred a
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Sweet Treat: Chocolate and the Making of American Jews
You may wonder: how did chocolate help define American Jews? Through chocolate, we see that Jews were part of America since its earliest days. Well, since 1701 at least, Jews in the Colonies made part of their living through chocolate. Several Sephardim, leaders of their New York and Newport Jewish and secular communities, participated in
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How About Some Uterus Challah?
When Logan Zinman Gerber felt enraged about the loss of reproductive rights in the U.S., she baked challah. Not any challah. She shaped it into a uterus. It wasn’t long after the birth of her daughter that Gerber, a longtime challah baker and staff member of the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement, considered
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Some Previous Posts
(in alphabetical order)
- "Boston Chocolate Party" Q&As with Deborah Kalb
- 2022 Media for The "Boston Chocolate Party"
- A Manhattan synagogue explores the rich, surprising history of Jews and chocolate
- About Rabbi Deborah Prinz
- Baking Prayers into High Holiday Breads
- Boston Chocolate Party
- Digging into Biblical Breads
- Exhibit Opens! Sweet Treat! Chocolate & the Making of American Jews
- For the Easiest Hanukah Doughnuts Ever
- Forthcoming! On the Bread Trail
- Funny Faced Purim Pastries
- Good Riddance Chameitz or, The Polemics of Passover's Leaven
- How About Some Uterus Challah?
- Injera*
- Jewish Heritage Month: Baseball & Chocolate!
- Matzah - But, the Dough Did Rise!
- Plan a Choco-Hanukkah Party: 250th Anniversary Tea Party
- Prayers Into Breads
- To Shape Dough: A Trio of Techniques