Why do we eat chocolate eggs at Easter?
Don't worry, we're here to tell you
By Flora Igoe and Carlotta Panza
Whether covered in nuts, stuffed with a surprise, surprise-less (so sad!) made of all kinds of chocolate, thumb-size or gigantic, chocolate eggs are omnipresent during Easter. But where does this custom originate from?
According to sources, Persians were the first to exchange (hen) eggs as a token of good fortune at the beginning of spring, a tradition the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans subsequently picked up.
In Christianity, the egg has become a symbol for Jesus’ rebirth— just as a chick emerges from an egg, Jesus emerged from the tomb three days after his death. The egg came to represent rebirth, hope, and new life.
The egg, it seems, carries similar symbolic meaning in many different cultures across the world and throughout history.
But the question remains - when did the famous Easter egg become chocolate?
This story takes us to the 1720s Court of Versailles where King Louis XV of France is said to have introduced the first chocolate Easter eggs, modeled after ostrich eggs. The King, who’s influence didn’t go unnoticed in French cuisine (he is said to have introduced French onion soup), had a Service de Bouche, or mouth-service, made up of over 300 people. It was this team of cooks they say, always ready to satisfy a royal craving, that we should thank for the chocolate egg.
However, it is thanks to the zar Alexander III of Russia if the custom of placing a surprise in eggs takes place today. He has commissioned Peter Carl Fabergé, a renowned goldsmith, to make a platinum egg as a gift for his wife, within which a second golden egg lay. In the Italian capital of chocolate, Turin, it was common to hide a little surprise within chocolate eggs from the 1700s, however it wasn’t until the mid 1870s that this practice became widespread and available to the masses, thanks to Cadbury.
The origin of the chocolate egg is not an easy case to crack, the result of many cross-cultural influences which make the timeline hard to trace. We can say however, with full conviction, the symbolic resonance of spring, eggs, the end of Lent and, of course, chocolate, create the perfect recipe for a tradition practiced (and appreciated!) by us all.