On the Chocolate Trail

Shavuot’s dairy customs celebrating the revelation of Torah at Mt. Sinai beckon me towards milk chocolate.

As Janna Gur, Chief Editor of Israel’s Al Hashulchan–The Israeli Gastronomic Monthly explained to me in a phone conversation, Israelis love chocolate and have a distinct preference for milk chocolate. The Elite brand developed several favorites in the milky realm. M’kupelet, bars of thinly folded milk chocolate similar to the Flake Bar of Cadbury from 1920, have been produced by Elite since 1935. The fondly remembered Hayal-Hayelet, a fifty-gram milk chocolate bar, was sold to Israeli soldiers at subsidized prices at canteens. The great majority of the Israeli population served in the military. Chocolate eating in the Tzava, the Israeli military, provided, as one person described to me, another means to klitah or absorption into Israeli society for what he called “exotic populations, immigrant groups from Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia.”

While Elite attempted to capitalize on the culture of the military through Hayal-Hayelet, its Para brand cultivated the general Israeli population. Israel’s boutique chocolate purveyors of today compete with this long familiar taste of Elite’s pioneering Para (cow) brand, originally known Shamnonit. Wrapped in the distinctive red paper imprinted with a cow, Israelis fondly identify it simply as Para, or Para Adumah or Shokolada Parah. To find out more about Elite and its Para on a recent visit to Israel, I tracked down a phone number for the Strauss Group (which merged with Elite in 1996) expecting an ordeal to connect with the right person in the chocolate department, yet hoping to confirm an appointment during my limited time in the country. The receptionist responded with typically hospitable Israeli informality and immediately offered to gift me a book about the history of Elite from her home library . The next morning Mark and I drove to the company headquarters in Petach Tikvah to find Tzila Gilbert at her desk with the large commemorative picture book about the 60th anniversary of Elite stapled carefully into a white envelope. Not only that, but Tzila then encouraged us to enjoy a drink at the Elite café at the other end of the hall.

As I downed my hot chocolate with M’kupelet, Tzila contacted the director of the chocolate division for an appointment. Within just moments we were chatting with a very pregnant Hila Elad, Director of the Chocolate Division of the Strauss Group. Hila grew up on Para, having often lunched on a fifty-gram slab of Para chocolate on a roll. Twenty to thirty years ago all they had was Para, she recalled nostalgically.

Israelis also adore chocolate flavored spread. Around the time that Nutella unveiled its first modest version in 1946, Israelis developed a local formula, minus the hazelnuts.

As Haim Palgui, Elite’s “Chocolate Chief Technologist” made clear,  Israelis also adore chocolate flavored spread, “ … it spreads easily on bread, it does not spoil, it is cheap and sweet.” In the austerity period of the 1950s, the Tzena, his mother, z”l, (of blessed memory) whipped up the spread using margarine, powdered sugar and cocoa powder. One former Israeli army reservist recalled that chocolate spread was often served at meals in the army, its pareve (non-dairy, non-meat) nature making it an easy addition that caused no conflict with the laws of kashrut. Also, night patrols fortified themselves with sweet tea, bread and chocolate spread, both going out and returning, as my kibbutznik brother-in-law Jay recalls. In a sweet irony, our local, upper East Side, Egyptian-owned bodega, sells the Hashachar variety of Israeli chocolate spread. Why? Isaac El Neggar says, “Just to have. Some people crave it because it relates to their childhood.” He himself prefers the taste of Nutella.

Recipe: Israeli Chocolate Spread–Dairy Version

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

3 whole eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5-6 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder

Instructions:

Cut butter into small pieces and put in blender. Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and blend well. Then add the cocoa powder and blend well again. Put in a container and refrigerate.

Cross posted at Jew and the Carrot.