Ginger and Chocolate for Christmas
An Old-World Delight Marries Sweet and Spicy for a Yummy Treat
In the British Isles, chocolate-covered ginger has been a Christmas pleasure for centuries. Columbus started it, but you can finish with treats from several online shops
A Christmas treat in England and Ireland, for many years, has been chocolate-covered ginger. Both sweet and tangy, with a center like a slightly more robust jelly-filled truffle, the sweet is high on the list of favored British Isles sweets, along with Turkish Delight and Jacob’s Biscuits.
Ginger first, chocolate second
Ginger was carried from its likely point of origin in India along the early maritime trade routes of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea probably before the 5th century CE, landing in all the countries ringing those bodies of water. But it had been specifically exported from India to the Roman Empire—which extended to Britain—as long as 2000 years ago. With commerce between Ireland and Britain, it naturally appeared in the Emerald Isle not long afterward. Although its early use was medicinal, “By medieval times, it was being imported in preserved form, to be used in sweets.”
Then, of course, someone had to get the bright idea of marrying it with chocolate, once that enticing substance had arrived.
Christopher Columbus, during his fourth and last trip to the New World, in 1502, tasted chocolate, but didn’t like it.
A later Spanish explorer, Hernan Cortes, also found it distasteful, but he and his cohorts succumbed by adding sugar and milk during a time when other beverages, more familiar to Europeans, were in short supply. He brought cacao beans home in 1527, but it wasn’t until about 1585 that ‘chocolate’ began to be popular.
The birth of bliss
Chocolate arrived in Britain about 1657, being served as a beverage in chocolate houses, not unlike an Elizabethan Starbucks. Shortly, London became the birthplace of the first solid chocolate. Voila! The stage was set for chocolate-covered ginger, putatively a British invention. Not surprisingly, it is available—especially at Christmastide—from a variety of shops and purveyors throughout England and Ireland. In the United States, however, it is generally easier to find sources online.
Ordering chocolate-covered ginger
If you would like to order some by mail in the United States, here are some possibilities:
- British Delights offers Bendicks’ Ginger Collection. This is a traditional format, with relatively brittle dark chocolate covering very consistently flavorful and tender bits of ginger. Reach their online shop, which ships from within the U.S. to U.S. customers.
- Foodireland carries many ginger confections, but not the classic chocolate-covered ginger. Still, their Christmas hampers, including a variety of chocolates and ginger-based sweets, might be worth a try—especially for those unsure they would like the robust taste of pure ginger wrapped in chocolate. They, too, ship Irish products from within the U.S. to U.S. customers.
- The Ginger People. This company, started in 1984, is dedicated to ginger, with factories in its native Australia (thus keeping the British connection) and one in California. They produce their ginger in small batches, to capture all of the piquant flavor.
- Another dedicated company is Scharffen Berger, founded about ten years later. Also in California, this company is dedicated to the chocolate first, ginger second, but can be relied upon to produce a highly satisfactory bit of chocolate-covered ginger.
- If you happen to live on the East Coast or West Coast or upper Midwest in the United States, you can probably find chocolate-covered ginger at Trader Joe’s, and it will be relatively inexpensive, and quite good and natural, as are most of Trader Joe’s products. Indeed, since they carry it virtually all year round, once you develop a taste for the confection, you’ll know you can have your Christmas in July.
Sources:
Cote d’Or company website,
http://www.cotedor.co.uk/cotedor/page?siteid=cotedor-prd&locale=uken1&PagecRef=567
Plant Cultures website, http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/ginger_history.html
