Belgium and chocolate are a perfect marriage. Belgium boasts 13 chocolate manufacturers and shops per 100,000 inhabitants and is the second largest exporter of chocolate after Germany. Chocolate may be Belgian, but the praline is indeed a Brussels invention. Brussels media outlet Bruzz went in search of the praline’s history.
The invention of the praline can be tracked back to Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss national, who originally wanted to become a doctor, but failed his exams because of his aversion to blood. He moved to Brussels and in 1857 opened a pharmacy in the Koninginnegalerij, the Queen's Gallery. To cover up any unpleasant taste from his medicines, he is said to have coated them in chocolate.
In 1912, grandson Jean Neuhaus junior replaced the medication with cream and developed the Belgian praline. To protect the chocolates and present them in a beautiful way, his wife Louise Agostini designed a gift box, the ballotin.
Neuhaus's invention of the praline was the start of praline culture in the Belgian and Flemish capital. Other famous praline makers emerged in the 1920s. Pierre Draps started his Chocolatery Draps in 1926, which he later renamed Godiva. Two years earlier, Leonidas Georges Kestekides and his cousin Basilio were selling chocolates by horse and cart. A first shop opened on Boulevard Anspach and in the Seventies Leonidas moved to Anderlecht, where it launched what is arguably the most famous praline in the world with the Manon - another Brussels invention from the Eighties.
Coincidence
That Brussels is the cradle of the praline is pure coincidence. Had Neuhaus moved from Switzerland to another city, he might have invented them there. Still, it is quite understandable that this delicacy was invented in the Belgian capital. "Even before the invention of the praline, in the eighteenth century, Brussels was already a rather snobbish city, with an elite that liked to copy what was happening in Paris and London," explains food historian Peter Scholliers. "Especially when it came to new foods, such as drinking hot cocoa."
Solid chocolate emerged later when Switzerland’s François-Louis Cailler invented a technique to solidify chocolate. That know-how also ended up in Brussels, where chocolate was produced on a small scale during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Neuhaus was not the first chocolate producer in the capital, but he did invent the praline. "Very quickly, other artisan producers copied him. Independent bakeries must have had their own versions at this time," Scholliers notes. "That will have helped to spread the praline to all social classes and around the country."
Initially, pralines were something for the elite, who gave them as gifts during visits. Because pralines were also sold in small quantities, they fairly quickly reached wider social circles. Especially after World War II, a ballotin of pralines became a gift that everyone could afford.
Although these chocolates have evolved enormously. Less praline, more ganache and special flavours characterise the Brussels pralines of chocolatiers like Herman Van Dender, Vanessa Renard and Frederic Blondeel.