Valentine’s Day: how chocolate became the food of love

A sweet history of seduction

By Josie Delap

Even in a pandemic – perhaps particularly in a pandemic – nothing can stop the onslaught of Valentine’s Day adverts. Goods of all shapes and sizes briefly morph into heart-shaped objects. All manner of food is coloured red or sold as a more romantic version of its former self (spicy “love sausage”, anyone?). Yet when the pressure is on to express our passion, many of us fall back on a Valentine’s staple: chocolate, the ultimate food of love.

The connection between chocolate and romance is an enduring one. Cacao, the base ingredient for chocolate, first acquired a social significance in Mesoamerica, where the beans have been used to flavour food and make drinks since around 2,000BC. Mayans and Aztecs bartered with cacao. The ingredient was also an element of ritual offerings, including those linked to fertility and love. Drinks made with cacao and flavoured with spices, honey or flowers were exchanged and drunk at important moments, such as in negotiations between a suitor and his prospective father-in-law.

European colonisers were initially sceptical of cacao, but eventually they too were seduced by it and took the beans back to their homelands. At first, chocolate was the preserve of royalty and the elites, but a liking for it soon spread. Many were convinced of the energising powers of chocolate – not without reason, since cacao contains theobromine and caffeine, both mild stimulants.

It was the Victorians who definitively established chocolate as the food of romance, especially for Valentine’s Day. People sent sweet nothings on this day even in medieval times. Charles, duke of Orleans, wrote the first known Valentine’s love poem in 1415 while imprisoned in the Tower of London (“I am already sick of love/My very gentle Valentine,” he told his wife).

But it was Richard Cadbury, the eponymous founder of the British chocolate company, who made V-day so sweet. In 1861 Cadbury came up with the idea of stuffing his firm’s wares into a heart-shaped box to flog in the run-up to February 14th. Even after the chocolates were long gone, lovesick maidens could fill the boxes with mementoes of their paramours – and more delicious treats.

The Americans tightened the tie between chocolate and romance with the invention of Hershey’s “Kisses” in the early 20th century. These days no Valentine’s meal would be complete without the chocolate fondant, an oozily suggestive dessert that is a triumph of precise baking. (The pandemic has one positive: this year most of us will legitimately be spared a pricey outing to a restaurant full of awkward couples.)

The love of chocolate is not always a romance of equals

The love of chocolate is not always a romance of equals. In America, both men and women buy chocolate for each other on the day of love, but in Japan women are expected to buy chocolates for their sweetheart. The roots of the tradition go back to confectioners (again). In the 1950s, heart-shaped chocolates were marketed as an acceptable way for women to express kokuhaku – a confession of their love – which at the time was considered inappropriately forward (men get their chance a month later on “White Day”, when they can reciprocate the gesture).

The food of love may obscure a deeper devotion, however. Look carefully at the chocolate adverts and you’ll see that most feature a woman enjoying her delicious sweet alone. It is almost as though chocolate is a replacement for other earthly delights. Who needs a man – or sex – when a chocolate is just as sweet?

Josie Delap is International editor of The Economist and writes about food for 1843

ILLUSTRATIONS: BETH HOECKEL

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