On the Chocolate Trail

I am very excited that the NYCs Bernard Museum exhibit, “Semi[te] Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate” based on my book, On the Chocolate Trail, will now be forging new paths as it travels around the country. We selected On the Chocolate Trail as the book title for a number of reasons. First, it evokes the diffusion of

Fathers, Dominicans that is, helped bridge the New World’s chocolate to the Old World. In 1544 Padres tantalized the Spanish court with chocolate prepared and presented by a Kekchi Maya delegation of New World natives. Fatherly faith indeed aided in spreading chocolate to new regions of the world, to new religious contexts, and to new

Several publications picked up my pieces about chocolate and Passover recently — Huffington Post, Jewish Journal and Jewish Telegraphic Agency — and I share them here, along with A Haggadah for a Socially Responsible Chocolate Seder and related rabbinic texts from responsa literature: A Haggadah for a Socially Responsible Chocolate Seder (free download!) This Haggadah

Yes, they do, according to a story told by our colleague and friend, Rabbi Mo Salth, first recounted by radio commentator, Paul Harvey. A mother decided that her family should eat more healthfully and alerted her children that she would no longer be purchasing sugary snacks. She took her 3-year-old son to the grocery store

“Did Jews ‘Invent’ Chocolate?” An Exclusive Interview with Deborah Prinz by Walter Bingam for his radio program “Walter’s World” at Israel National Radio about my book On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao, published by Jewish Lights and now in its second

This year make room for chocolate in your Sukkot celebration. Sukkot’s theme of openness symbolized by the leafy ceiling and flimsy walls tempts creative approaches to menus, decorations, and customs. Deuteronomy 16:14’s challenge “v’samachta b’chagecha” (to rejoice in the festival) could easily be fulfilled by layering chocolate onto the holiday’s menus. Sukkot’s custom of welcoming

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

After trying for weeks to get confirmation for our Rosh HaShanah reservation at the Pines in Fire Island–to pray in a new setting, to be with friends, to be at the beach, to have a break–we decided we had better go to our fall back option: Switzerland! So it was chocolate that ultimately escorted us

In response to a recent request: (fuller information in my forthcoming book Jews on the Chocolate Trail: Stories of Jews and Cacao) 1.  Some people think that Jews brought chocolate to France. 2.  In the eighteenth century, Jews were thought to be specialists in chocolate making. 3.  Woody Guthrie wrote a song about Chanukah gelt.

Today’s tough economics send many of us to sweets and chocolate to find comfort on tighter budgets. Candy satisfies us today; in the Colonial Period in North America, the daily menu often included drinking chocolate. In 1747 a minister only identified as “Your humble Servant, T.W.,” published a lament about his congregation not maintaining his

In the pioneering days of chocolate in our country, pastoral ministrations using chocolate took several forms. Judge Samuel Sewall, (March 28, 1652 – January 1, 1730) a Massachusetts judge involved in the Salem witch trials, (he later apologized) recorded in his diary that his pastoral ministration bundled visits and sermons with gifts of chocolate: “Monday,

In early December of 2006, my husband Mark and I discovered the roots of chocolate Chanukah gelt. That winter we drove a rental car from Brussels to Liege, Belgium, searching for a chocolate museum in the nearby town of Eupen. As we descended the hilly road that took us into downtown Liege to our hotel,

A serious chocolate lover has to wonder why Judaism today has neither serious ritual celebrations nor customs using good chocolate, especially at Rosh Hashanah when we emphasize the sweetness we anticipate and long for in the coming New Year. On Rosh Hashanah, we greet each other with the phrase, Shanah Tovah u’Metukah! “a good and

June 20, 2007 Poblet We had read a text panel at the Barcelona Chocolate Museum explaining that chocolate arrived in Spain in 1520, one year after Cortez arrived in Mexico. A Cistercian monk, Fray Aguilar, shipped chocolate with the recipe to the Monasterio de Piedra in Aragon and possibly also to the monastery at Poblet.