Marmite en Chocolat

This box contains a chocolate pot. No, not a cooking utensil for chocolate, but a chocolate in the unlikely shape of a cooking utensil.

It's called a marmite en chocolat and it is made to celebrate the Genevan festival of L'Escalade. The festival celebrates the victory of Geneva against a surprise attack by the Savoyards in 1602. Charles Emmanuel I, the then Duke of Savoy, had had his eye on Geneva and its riches for some time. On the night of 11th/12th December 1602, he persuaded 2000 men to assemble at 2 AM to attack the city. He must have held quite some clout because it would have been freezing. They started their attack on Geneva but were unable to get over the walls of the city-state, because of fierce resistance from the Genevan militia and general populace.

The marmite now makes an entrance into the story, because at the point that the Savoyards were trying to climb the walls of the city, an enterprising woman grabbed a giant cauldron of hot soup and poured it on the intruders. This caused an uproar which helped to alert the rest of the town to what was going on. She was Catherine Cheynel and she was a mother of fourteen children, which may explain why she was making industrial quantities of soup at two in the morning.

Cut to the modern day, and people in Geneva celebrate the victory each year on the weekend closest to the 11th December. There's a parade and mulled wine, and people buy marmites en chocolat. On the front of the pot is the crest of Geneva, and inside there are marzipan vegetables - mine contained a little turnip.

The tradition goes that the youngest and the oldest person in the house join hands and smash the pot into smithereens. After that, everyone shares the chocolate. And that's why in December you can buy chocolate in the shape of a pot in Geneva.