I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to write something for easter (I missed St Patrick’s Day which seems a missed opportunity for some drunken stupor like post). Anyway. I figured out what to write about. Chocolate eggs. Why chocolate (and eggs in particular)?

  1. Hard boiled painted eggs are for wimps (or easter neophytes).EasterBunnies_2
  2. Chocolate bunnies don’t have eggs (and the only good parts are the ears anyway)
  3. The right chocolate egg is a solid unqualified sugar high (best legal drug out there)

Anyway.

As I pondered the chocolate Easter egg, slightly drooling, I took a moment to wonder what Easter Eggs and rabbits had to do with Jesus’ resurrection (I am not sure I have ever seen a rabbit in one of the classic Jesus Italian renaissance paintings).

So. The origin of Easter and why we have Easter Eggs.

Easter is commonly believed to be a Christian festival where the death of Jesus is remembered and resurrection celebrated. But the history of Easter actually has an earlier association with pagan rituals of spring. The name Easter comes from a pagan figure called Eastre (or Eostre), the goddess of spring, by Northern European Saxons. A festival called Eastre was held during the spring equinox by the Saxons to honor her. (here is where the rabbit comes in)

The goddess Eastre’s earthly symbol was the rabbit (a symbol of fertility).

When the Saxons came to Britain in the 5th century they brought this Eastre festival which included re-birth and fertility rituals involving eggs, chicks and rabbits. Christianity gradually replaced the pagan religion of the English Saxons around the 7th/8th centuries and the Saxons began celebrating the death and the resurrection of Jesus. The death and resurrection took place at the feast of Passover in the Jewish calendar which coincided with Eostre, so that’s what the early church in Britain called the celebration, Eostre or Easter in modern English.

(here is where the egg comes in) As well as adopting the pagan festival of Eostre, the Egg, representing fertility and re-birth in pagan times, was also adopted as part of the early Christian Easter festival and it came to represent the ‘resurrection’ or re-birth of Jesus after His death on the cross.

The birth of the chocolate egg

No. some German didn’t figure out how to engineer a hen who could crank out a chocolate egg. It was just some people who liked chocolate (and easter). In Great Britain and Europe the earliest Easter eggs were painted and decorated (still done on in many parts of the world today).  And the first chocolate Easter eggs appeared in Germany and France in the early 1800’s and soon spread to the rest of Europe. The first chocolate eggs were solid and they were soon followed by hollow eggs.  By the 20th Century, the molded Chocolate Easter Egg was fast becoming the Easter gift of choice in England and many parts of Europe, and by the 1960’s it was well established worldwide.

Now. To today’s the chocolate egg.

Find one from the Chocolate Alchemist.

First. Any place called the chocolate alchemist has to have their shit together when it comes to anything chocolate (and they do).

Second. You are looking for an egg with serious chocolate, delivered at a serious thickness.

Look. You can take some hollow crème filled chalky milk chocolate if you want but the best egg is a rock. Third. The darker the chocolate the better (hey. this is my site so I can set the standard).

The best about this advice? Contrary to Halloween when you have to fight the kids for the chocolate, if you stick with the above advice most children believe dark chocolate is the devil’s work. They do not want things painted with oriental images or are wrapped in ribbons and chiffon paper or proclaiming loudly their cocoa solid content. They want something sweet and ideally a hidden surprise (so fork something over to them so you can chow down on the serious egg).

Plus. Almost anything by The Chocolate Alchemist is so thick a child couldn’t get through it unless they stole a chisel from the tool box. The Chocolate Alchemist? An award winning organic chocolate manufacturer based in England (working in a converted stable in the countryside) that hand makes their chocolates. All their products are hand-made and stylishly packaged in cool contemporary packaging by a small happy staff who ride bikes to work. (happy and in a sugar coma)sold out chocoltae egg

This year?

Milk Chocolate Fudge Jeweled Egg. Sold out.

dark chocolate wih mintOrganic Dark Chocolate with Peppermint Polka Dots Egg. Sold out.

The jewels (in the first) are nuggets of creamy, melt-in-your-mouth fudge. The fudge extras are nestled into an egg made with an amazing chocolate (sorry. No Hersheys here.). The Alchemists source it from small family producers in Dominican Republic (their milk chocolate has an awesome texture and vanilla-spiced flavors).

But beware beyond The Chocolate Alchemist. There are expensive eggs (dark chocolate or otherwise) out there decorated with a delicate hand painted image of birds, gold lace, expensive chiffon or some other female looking shindiggery. And then you get a nifty $30 price tag and you gulp (but don’t gulp the egg cause it ain’t worth it). They’ll be okay but don’t justify the price tag.

Remember the infamous chocolate easter egg advice “An egg that is beautiful to look at, but not much fun to eat is a waste of everyone’s time and money.”

Written by Bruce