When it comes to fine chocolate, Hanukkah gelt does not spring to mind. Several chocolate makers, however, are working to change that by bringing finer, tastier and richer dark chocolate to gelt.
Cookbook author Leah Koenig, who has done several gelt tastings, wrote in Saveur that artisan chocolatiers from all over the world have started creating top-notch chocolate coins. Koenig looks for a high ratio of cocoa solids to the other ingredients. For her, that means “more flavor than sweet.”
Francine Segan, an author and chocolate maven, explains that “good chocolate needs to contain 100 percent cocoa product, without cheap substitutes or additives, along with quality sugar and flavorings. Just as we want to be feeding our children real food, we should be giving them real chocolate.”
Lake Champlain Chocolates in Burlington, Vt., packages its quality milk chocolate coins in festive Hanukkah boxes. Rich and enticing squares of chocolate-covered toffee and almonds, or almonds with sea salt, nestle in its “Be Kind, Be Fair, Be Conscious, Be Well” A Gift of Goodness box. They are fair trade, organic and kosher.
Heather Johnston started making kosher Gelt for Grown-Ups two years ago at her Chicago-based Veruca Chocolates after she and some friends bemoaned the horrible quality of gelt. She decided to remedy the problem by using a great-tasting chocolate made by Burlingame-based Guittard, which sources and selects its own beans to create an artisanal, luxury chocolate. For sophisticated palates, she offers two dark chocolate versions: with sea salt or with cocoa nibs.
Divine Chocolate’s online store offers dark and milk chocolate coins produced through the farmer cooperative Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana. The phrase “Freedom and Justice” encircles the foil-embossed cocoa tree.
A collaboration among Divine, Berkeley–based nonprofit Fair Trade Judaica, and T’ruah, the rabbinic group for human rights, the coins can be ordered online. Sales support the two nonprofits.
“The gelt we eat on Hanukkah is a reminder of the freedom our people won many years ago,” Ilana Schatz writes at the Bay Area-based Fair Trade Judaica website (www.fairtradejudaica.org). “Young children are trafficked and forced into working on cocoa farms with no pay and in unsafe conditions in the Ivory Coast.”
Fair trade standards prohibit the use of child and slave labor, a problem particularly in West Africa.
Several resources offer discussion prompts for Hanukkah experiences. Lesson plans for adults and children (downloadable for free at Jews-onthechocolatetrail.org) assist educators in framing the issues of good Hanukkah gelt through conversations about Jewish values. Hazon and partners have developed brief learning materials, titled “Spinning the Dreidel for Chocolate Gelt,” to encourage purchases of fair trade and kosher chocolate gelt.
Selecting fair trade chocolate meshes with Hanukkah’s spiritual messages about freedom and fairness.
A prayer, “Eating [Fair Trade] Hanukkah Gelt,” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor of Berkeley’s Congregation Netivot Shalom, recognizes the possibilities for chocolate to inspire Hanukkah’s theme of enlightening the world’s dark places, an important spin on good gelt for Hanukkah, especially for children.
So say a prayer, then enjoy the improved chocolate gelt choices — they may not stay under wraps for long.
Rabbi Deborah R. Prinz is the author of “On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao” (2013, Jewish Lights).