Love is in the air: make a sweet treat to show you care

Published February 12, 2023

by Janet Blaser

Those who’ve been in Mexico on Valentine’s Day know that it’s celebrated in high style, with giant stuffed teddy bears, extravagant flower arrangements, balloons and boxes of chocolates and candies.

It surprised me at first; now it’s charming, rather sweet and often amusing. Día de San Valentín is a “festivity” holiday, an official designation that includes other special days like Mother’s and Father’s Day, Teacher’s Day and Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe.

The origin of Valentine’s Day harkens to the third century, when a renegade Italian bishop officiated at weddings for couples who were not permitted to marry for various reasons: the parents didn’t approve of the match; one member of the couple was a slave; or the man was a soldier. Valentine performed the weddings and gave the couple flowers. Not surprisingly, the emperor disapproved of this, and on Feb. 14, A.D. 269, Valentine was beheaded.

His love of love, however, lives on in the holiday, and St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers everywhere.

The commercialization of Valentine’s Day — and the introduction of chocolate as representative of true love — came centuries later. In the late 1300s, Chaucer wrote a poem heralding “seynt Voantynes day” as the time when “every bird cometh to choose his mate.” And in Europe, especially Britain, people were rapidly becoming addicted to cacao, a new imported delicacy, and discovering so many things that could be done with it.

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