In honour of IWD, we're kicking the week off with a look at women throughout the history of chocolate.
🍫 During the Aztec empire, women were responsible for making chocolate drinks in the capital of Tenochtitlan - the location of the first noted use of cacao beans.
🍫 The Mayans worshipped IxCacao, the Goddess of fertility and chocolate, with cacao considered a sacred Mayan medicine.
🍫 In 1727, Eliza Smith was the first cookbook author to use chocolate in her recipes. She's also said to have published the first recipe for chocolate cake in North America.
🍫 In Europe, chocolate was a popular commodity among royals with Queen Victoria famously eating it with her breakfast every day!
🍫 Emily Bliss Thacher Souder, a nurse volunteer at Gettysburg, prescribed chocolate to soldiers recuperating during the Civil War.
🍫 The 1999 novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris was adapted into a fantastic film, where a woman and her daughter open an unusual chocolate shop, and bring controversy, temptation and desire to a small French town just as lent begins.
🍫 Despite women being equally involved in cocoa farming, it's traditionally seen as a “man's job.” It's said that women do much of the work, right until the cocoa dries, but receive only about 20% of the income. Cacao co-operatives around the world like CAYAT and projects like Cacao Source focus on empowering women cacao farmers in Africa and Latin America to ensure ethical production and fair trade.
🍫 In 2019, JOYÀ launched it's first two chocolate bars formulated by founder @chef.ruthy, and a third - the first bean-to-bar functional chocolate - a year later. In 2023, JOYÀ launched its full line of adaptogen-powered functional chocolate bars.... and there's more on the way!