The Little-Known History Of The Heart-Shaped Chocolate Box

Just as the world seems tipped in gray and the point in winter where spring seems furthest, snow banks turn from white to ash, and melt to puddles, then freeze to sheets of ice, perfect for slipping. It seems fortuitous, then, that just as the grays and browns of winter seem to be at their most bleak, store aisles seem to take on a flush of pinks and reds. Sprayed across drugstores and grocery shelves are rows and rows of heart-shaped boxes. Most of these boxes are filled with chocolates. In recent years, other candies have also made their way into heart-shaped boxes, such as gummy worms and sour candies. You can even find heart-shaped boxes filled with crystals and lingerie. 

The heart-shaped box has become a ubiquitous part of Valentine's Day celebrations, with most customers buying them as a reflex or a habitual offering to their chosen sweetheart. But how did the ever-present heart-shaped box of chocolates (or other treats) come to be? The history of this love-themed treat is long and winding, dating as far back as Ancient Greece, at least in concept. However, we can source the exact inventor of the heart-shaped chocolate box to one Richard Cadbury, a Victorian chocolatier who introduced the product along with a new form of "eating chocolates" that would come to redefine the love-soaked holiday.

The famous scalloped heart shape is inescapable and, quite frankly, a little incomprehensible to anyone who has seen an actual human heart. So how did this symbol come to represent the heart, and how did the heart come to represent love? Let's start with the shape. On this account, there are various, competing theories. One theory suggests that the shape comes from the heart shape of some reptiles and birds, which were often used for anatomical studies in the Middle Ages. Others suggest that the heart shape comes from the shape of a fig leaf, or of silphium, a plant related to fennel that was often used as a contraceptive (how romantic). 

And how then did the heart itself become a symbol for love? Well, that is even more complicated. The association of hearts with love has been around since Ancient Greece when Sappho wrote of her "mad heart." In the Middle Ages, it was often assumed that one's heart was a book of record and dedication for one's being and that a heart, your physical heart, may be marked by your love (for man or for God). The familiar image of the heart as a symbol of one's love and affection first appeared in 1344. By the 1500s, the image of the heart became widespread and could be found on jewelry and in book manuscripts. From there, the heart image became inextricably tied to love. 

The matter of the heart shape, and how it came to represent love, is complicated, contested, and quite long. Thankfully, the story of the heart-shaped chocolate box is much more straightforward. Though the history of Valentine's Day as a romantic holiday has roots as far back as the 14th century, the holiday really took off in the 1800s, during the Victorian period. It was in this era that Valentine cards began to be commercially produced and distributed en masse. These cards were often sent in the mail thanks to the establishment of the Penny Post, which made sending small pieces of mail relatively inexpensive for the average British citizen. Along with these Valentine cards, small gifts were also popular.

Capitalizing on this newly commercialized holiday, Richard Cadbury, of Cadbury Chocolates, invented the heart-shaped chocolate box in 1868. Though this invention proved to be revolutionary, Cadbury did not file an actual patent for his invention, so the heart-shaped chocolate box became widely popular. And, like the Victorian Valentine card, the heart-shaped chocolate box also caught on in the United States. In the Victorian era, these boxes were ornately decorated with lace, flowers, and embellishments. The boxes were often held on to long after the chocolates were eaten, functioning as sentimental keepsakes and filled with love letters, trinkets, and memories. And even as time has rendered these boxes less ornate and more brand-focused, the heart-shaped box remains a key and iconic part of Valentine's Day celebrations.

Of course, a nice heart-shaped box of Valentine's Day chocolate isn't complete without, well, the chocolate. It is, after all, precisely what one conjures when Valentine's Day candies are mentioned, except for maybe those chalky little conversation hearts. So how did chocolate come to be the go-to filling for Valentine's Day boxes? And how does that tie into the shift in chocolate from beverage to confection? As it turns out, the answer to these two questions is closely intertwined. Until, and well into the Victorian period, chocolate was often served as a drink. "Eating chocolate" was invented in 1847 by the British chocolate company called Fry & Sons. The chocolate was made by combining cocoa powder with cocoa butter to produce an edible candy. Other companies, such as Cadbury, took note, and began producing its own "eating chocolates." 

In 1868, Richard Cadbury came up with the "Fancy Box," an ornately decorated box that held chocolate candies. The Fancy Boxes were a hit among consumers, who often kept the boxes, using them to store letters, trinkets, and gloves. Richard Cadbury's heart-shaped box was among these Fancy Boxes, and by the 20th Century, these heart-shaped boxes, and the chocolates therein, became a holiday staple. So this year when you buy a box of chocolates for your sweetheart, rest assured that you're biting into a rich bit of history.