Valentine's Day and chocolate imports

Today is Valentine's Day, which for some means chocolate, hearts and flowers, for others it's an imported commercial holiday. Regardless, you can also consider the day as an occasion to remember to do something good for those you care about. Just as a good deed and an expression of love. We send a big loving thought to you all - here with a form of historical chocolate, which of course contains an exciting filling of Danish Jewish history.

By Mads Emil Løkke Kristensen

Chocolate is the processed form of cocoa. The cocoa is actually beans that come from a tree. The tree sets pods that ripen from yellow to orange. In the pods, the small cocoa beans are found between the white pulp. In processing, the pulp and the beans are put together for fermentation. It enhances the cocoa flavor. After fermentation, the beans are removed from the pulp and left to dry in the sun. Next, the beans are roasted and split to remove the husk. From that comes the cocoa mass. It is this mass that, through pressing, is separated into two products, cocoa butter and cocoa powder. Chocolate is made by mixing the two again, cocoa powder and cocoa butter in varying amounts.

Cacao came to Europe in the early 1500th century. The first European to discover the cocoa bean was Christopher Columbus. It happened on his fourth and last trip to Central America in 1502. However, it would be a while before people in Denmark got the opportunity to taste and drink this new drink - chocolate - which only happened in 1665. At this time, drinking chocolate was a luxuries that only the most well-to-do families could afford.

Portuguese and Spanish Jews, the so-called Sephardic Jews, contributed significantly to the spread of chocolate. Persecution of Jews in Spain and Portugal meant that some of them chose to travel across the Atlantic and settle in the then 'new world', where the cocoa bean came from. From the middle of the 1600th century, the trade in chocolate and cocoa beans to Europe was, to a large extent, controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. They had a good trading network in many of the European trading cities, including Amsterdam and Hamburg.

In 1622, the first Jews arrived in Denmark from Glückstadt. They had close connections to the Jewish trade networks in Europe. Jews' opportunities to earn a living in Denmark were, however, heavily regulated. Jews were excluded from a number of professions and trade with many established product groups, just as they could not be admitted to the many guilds. It was therefore necessary to think creatively, utilize your networks and find new product and target groups. Trade in the new goods such as coffee, tea, chocolate and tobacco, where only the import was regulated, but the processing itself and the further trade was free, therefore offered obvious opportunities for Jewish traders to do business. Good business and well-known companies were created.

At the beginning of the 1700th century, Jews in Fredericia had a special permit to trade with e.g. coffee, tea, porcelain, gold and silver. With chests on their backs, they went to markets and sold their goods. It was easiest to transport coffee, tea and chocolate, while porcelain was more fragile. From the 1790s we know of a 'Samson Jøde' who sells 'one bundle of Chocolate 1 mark' to Karen Rosenkrantz de Lichtenberg, widow of Bidstrup Gods. The reason we know this was because the widow kept detailed accounts of those with whom she did business.

Many Jewish merchants did not specialize in just one of the three stimulants, but often sold several different ones. For example Abraham Aron Levy. He was born in Altona and came to Copenhagen in 1711, where he settled and lived until his death. Abraham Aron Levy was not only a chocolate manufacturer, but also traded in tea and coffee.

At the end of the 1700s, Jews in Copenhagen were so involved in selling these goods that coffee, tea and chocolate were called "Jewish goods". This also includes chocolate, which we have a special focus on on the occasion of the day. In 1750, one of the largest stocks of chocolate was found at one of Fredericia's Jewish merchants, Hartvig Isaach. He had a stock of 162 pounds, the equivalent of 73,5 kilos of chocolate. Especially in central Jutland, the Jews dominated with their sale of chocolate.

At this time, chocolate was the term for a hot drink. Only after the middle of the 1800s did chocolate become a term for eating chocolate as we know it today. It is also up through the 1800s that the tradition of birthday chocolate drink arises in many Danish homes.

We wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day and hope you take good care of each other.