Adams Fairacre farm, a staple in our community for over 100 years, has handcrafted a Bakers’ Dozen [13] treats for our annual Valentine’s Day fundraiser. This year’s offering is a 1/2 lb. of assorted creams, jellies, caramels of regular and dark chocolate for $10.00. Proceeds support the Rotary Club of Kingston’s local and international projects. Please contact a member or email Babs Cohen baccohen@gmail.comWho Created the First Valentine's Day Box of Chocolates?
By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a holiday to celebrate romantic love had taken over most of the English-speaking world. It was Cupid’s golden age: The prudish Victorians adored the notion of courtly love and showered each other with elaborate cards and gifts. Into this love-crazed fray came Richard Cadbury, scion of a British chocolate manufacturing family and responsible for sales at a crucial point in his company’s history. Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate making technique so as to extract pure cocoa butter from whole beans, producing a more palatable drinking chocolate than most Britons had ever tasted. This process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used to produce many more varieties of what was then called “eating chocolate.” Richard recognized a great marketing opportunity for the new chocolates and started selling them in beautifully decorated boxes that he himself designed. The rest, as they say, is history.