Chocolate
Twentieth-century American chocolatiers picked up on the gift/coin concept by creating chocolate gelt. In the 1920s, Loft's, an American candy company, produced the first chocolate gelt, wrapped in gold or silver foil in mesh pouches resembling money bags.[2]
Chocolate 'geld' is also given to children as part of the St. Nicholas holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands (geld, spelled with a d, being the Dutch word for money).[2] Today most of the chocolate Hanukkah gelt sold in the United States is imported, including from the Israeli firms Elite and Carmit.[2] But gourmet versions of chocolate gelt have been produced in the United States by companies like California-based Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates and Vermont-based Lake Champlain Chocolates. In England, Divine Chocolates makes gourmet gelt.[2]
[edit]Customs