The ancient Aztecs considered it a powerful aphrodisiac. Montezuma, according to legend, consumed large quantities of the stuff to enhance his charms with the ladies.
We’re talking about chocolate, of course, and with Valentine’s Day around the corner, the chocolatiers will get a workout.
What is it about chocolate that is so comforting, so intoxicating, so downright addictive? Legend has it that chocolate possesses passion-arousing chemicals. Can this be why a box of chocolate is the most popular gift for Valentine’s Day?
Some studies have shown that eating chocolate may stimulate the hypothalamus, inducing feelings of pleasure and affecting the levels of serotonin — you know, that feel-good chemical that produces a sense of euphoria after a workout.
Beginning in the early 1980s, researchers believed the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate were due to the presence of two substances: tryptophan, a building block of serotonin, a brain chemical involved in sexual arousal, and phenylethylamine, a stimulant related to amphetamine, which is released in the brain when people fall in love. More recent research has shown that the presence of these two chemicals is too small to have much of an effect.
But what do they know? It’s Valentine’s Day, and if it’s chocolate you’re craving, it’s time to indulge.
Famed chocolatier and cookbook author Alice Medrich once told me in an interview: “Of all the special, ‘gourmet foods,’ chocolate is one of the only ones we have all loved since childhood. It’s not an acquired taste. Maybe we liked milk chocolate and have grown to like bittersweet, but it’s always been there for us. We didn’t have to learn to like it, like coffee, wine or caviar.”
Although chocolate has not been proven to be an aphrodisiac, giving chocolate for Valentine’s Day is a well-established courtship ritual. According to the famous physicist Frank Oppenheimer, “Chocolate is a lot like sex. It’s got a practical purpose, but that’s not why people want it, normally.”
My husband knew better than to bring me chocolates for Valentine’s Day. But Feb. 14 usually would find me standing, along with all those men, on that line around the block at See’s on Orangethorpe Avenue and Lemon Street in Fullerton, shopping for a heart-shaped box for him.
Charles See and his wife, Florence, opened their first shop in Los Angeles on Western Avenue in 1921 with Charles’ mother, Mary. She contributed the recipes, and it’s her familiar face we still see on See’s logo.
By the mid-1920s, See’s expanded to 12 shops, including a location in the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater building, growing to 30 during the depression. Today there are more than 250 shops, with about 73% in California.
Remember that hilarious “I Love Lucy” episode in which Lucy and Ethel work on a chocolate assembly line that goes faster and faster? That was filmed at See’s.
Mary See died in 1939 at age 85, but the company continued to grow. The See family sold out in 1972 to Berkshire-Hathaway run by Warren Buffet, who knows a sweet deal when he sees one!
You’ve probably noticed the kiosks at airports, which were added beginning in 1989 — a real convenience for me, as I wouldn’t dream of visiting my daughter-in-law in Minnesota without bringing her favorite, See’s milk chocolates.
In the 1980s, See’s began printing recipes contributed by customers using See’s products. One for Toffee Coffee Torte was from Fullerton resident Marie Hyland.
Just in case you have some leftover Bordeaux Fudge lying around after Christmas, here’s a delicious way to recycle it. It might just be a good reason to pick some up!
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
SEE’S BORDEAUX FUDGE COOKIES
For more See’s recipes, go to Sees.com/dessert-recipes.
Yield: 72 cookies
Ingredients:
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 unbeaten egg yolk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 pound See’s Bordeaux Fudge
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cream butter and gradually add brown sugar. Mix well. Blend in egg yolk. Add flour and salt. Stir until it forms a dough. Chill until firm.
3. Shape dough into small balls. Place on baking sheet; make an indentation in center of each ball. Place small squares of Bordeaux fudge in the middle of each indentation. Bake for 8-10 minutes.