Chocolate: From witchcraft to miracle worker in early modern Europe

By Erin Alice Cowling, Associate Professor of Spanish, Department of Humanities, MacEwan University

We don’t generally think of chocolate as scary, despite its close ties to Halloween and all the miniature ghosts, skeletons and witches that will be out asking for a treat in lieu of a trick on Oct. 31. And even then, the threat of receiving a chocolate bar that has been tampered with is not enough to frighten most of us, and has been largely discredited as a hoax.

So, was there ever a time when chocolate was frightening? Not exactly. But there was a time when it was…

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