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Sweets For Your Sweetest
Composed by Amelia Blades Steward,
SOURCES: www.history.com, wwww.smithsonianmag.com
Looking back to the origins of Valentine’s Day, chocolates were not a part of the picture during the 14th century when Chaucer wrote about St. Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday in his poem “Parlement of Foules.” It wasn’t until years later that the celebration of a day around romantic love became popular in the English-speaking world and began to merge with the idea of sweets.
In the 1860s, Richard Cadbury, of the British chocolate manufacturing family, found a way to extract pure cocoa butter from whole cocoa beans and produce drinking chocolate and later eating chocolate that grew in popularity. It was when he started selling them in decorated boxes that he designed himself (possibly the first heart-shaped box) that the Victorians caught the fever and began buying them for loved ones for Valentine’s Day on February 14. The boxes were then used to store mementos and Victorian-era Cadbury boxes are prized collectibles even today. Cadbury’s chocolates were then followed by Milton Hershey’s chocolate kisses in 1907 and then Russell Stover’s candies in 1923, which were eventually packaged in heart-shaped boxes and distributed all around the world.
Chesapeake Chocolates
202 Island Plaza
Stevensville, MD 21666
410-643-7884
Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sunday: Closed
Chocolate crabs, sold individually, or in bushel baskets, chocolate roses, chocolate dipped and boxed candies, including truffles, and chocolate-covered strawberries!
Oh My Chocolate
417 Thompson Creek Road
Stevensville, MD 21666
410-643-7111
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday: 12 – 5 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 12 – 6 p.m.
Monday: Closed
Award-winning caramel apples to chocolate fountains, chocolate dipped wine bottles to chocolate-covered strawberries, and more!
Olde Town Candy Company
216 S. Talbot Street
St. Michaels, MD 21663
(410) 745-2066
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Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Friday: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday: Closed
Old-fashioned handmade candies and chocolates, delicious truffles, and
local chocolate crabs!