A History of Valentine's Day and Chocolate

    Chocolate, one could argue it's the gift you get the person who has everything. Its gift you can safely give to almost anyone. I mean if you stop to think about it, how many boxes of chocolates have you given/received over the years? Lost count? I dont know about you, but buying gifts for anyone but my kiddo makes me extremely nervous, the more unfamiliar the person the worse it gets.

    That being said, I wanna go ahead and acknowledge my bias now, but when it comes to gift giving I always feel safe buying chocolate. Even for unfamiliar friends of friends, co workers, just cause gifts, or a thank you present for the trashmen who picked up your two hundred and forty seven bags of trash you continually forgot to take out (cause surely I'm not the only one who does that...), Chocolate makes for a natural gift. 

     It isn't clutter, isn't going to be unappreciated, so you know it won't be regifted (unless it's Russel Stover...) It's a universal gift that can be simple or extremely personal. It's romantic and nostalgic and healing all at once. 

     But where the heck did the concept of giving Chocolates as gifts come from? Cause here we are, valentine day 2020 and boxes of chocolate are lining every store shelf just as fast as they leave em.
So who's idea was it to do this?

   Well chocolate and Valentine's day first crossed paths under Queen Victoria's rule back in the general time from of 1837. Yup. Even waaaaaaaaay back then, Valentine's day was becoming a majorly commercialized holiday, with fancy Victorian people the world over buying literally any and everything with Cupid or hearts on it to be given as a token of their love for their precious schnookems.

   It wouldn't be long until chocolate would come into the scene, starting with a thick silky drinking chocolate they had perfected by pulling the raw cocoa butter outta the cacao bean creating a truly decadent drinking experience that would inevitably lead to that same cocoa butter being used to greatly expand the "eating chocolate" flavors and varieties.
It was those very chocolates marketers would shameless shove into heart shaped boxes and player with cupid and roses and cherubs etc...

    The boxes became an instant hit, and went on to become THE go to gift. Even to this day, 94% of Americans will tell you, they hope to get a box of chocolates of one kind or another to celebrate that special day.

    So that's wher the tradition came from. The more you know. 

So in the spirit  of playful conversation, if you were given a box and told to fill it with five flavors. What would they be? Do you have any comfort food levels we need to know about?
Give me your five most anticipated truffle s in the. And who knows maybe it'll end up I. Our candy case if it isn't there already!