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
-
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
Read more › -
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
Read more › -
A Manhattan synagogue explores the rich, surprising history of Jews and chocolate
I’m grateful for this story written by Rachel Ringer, published at JTA/NY Jewish Week on December 20, 2023: (New York Jewish Week) — In 2006, Rabbi Deborah Prinz was on a trip to Europe with her husband, Rabbi Mark Hurvitz, when they wandered into a chocolate shop in Paris. While meandering about the store, Prinz picked
Read more › -
Exhibit Opens! Sweet Treat! Chocolate & the Making of American Jews
Sweet Treat is a delicious gastronomic adventure into the history and resilience of American Jewish chocolate making. This exhibition invites you to follow the chocolate trail to America, a scrumptious journey through time and place. Chocolate gives us a lens to understand Jewish migration, as the chocolate trade parallels the migrations of the Jewish
Read more ›
Some Previous Posts
(in alphabetical order)
- "Boston Chocolate Party" Q&As with Deborah Kalb
- 2022 Media for The "Boston Chocolate Party"
- About Rabbi Deborah Prinz
- Baking Prayers into High Holiday Breads
- Boston Chocolate Party
- Chocolate Chip Politics
- Digging into Biblical Breads
- 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
- Injera*
- Israeli Chocolate Spread
- 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
- Why Is Challah On My Matzah Box?