Basque ethnography at a glance

Chocolate from Cambo-les-Bains. Source: Pantxix Bidart.

It is known that chocolate was very valuable in the ancient South American civilizations. Cocoa beans were used as currency a thousand years before Christ. It was also used in medicine, ceramics and to make alcohol. The word comes from the Mayan civilization, who called the hot drink made with grain xocoatl.

Thanks to Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortés, cocoa made its way to Europe. It seems that it was a success at the wedding of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain (in 1660) and it was able to be established in the Basque Country from then on.

Many documents indicate that it came with the Jews who fled from Spain and Portugal and settled in the region. However, it can be said that by the 19th century it was already present in many homes and that chocolate makers were proliferating.

Kiskina house, location of Pascal Noblia’s first workshop. Source: Pantxix Bidart.

It also took root in Cambo-les-Bains (France)
At some point, it spread through the interior of the Basque Country and reached Cambo-les-Bains.

It is said that the first chocolate makers of Cambo-les-Bains were the Dolhabarats brothers, from the nearby town of Ainhoa, who settled in the Elizaldea house in the middle of the 18th century.

The Fagalde Company
However, the most important name in the fame of chocolate and the development of its activity is that of the Fagalde family. History tells us that Jean Fagalde (1748-1803) was a chocolatier in the Zaldun-egia house, in the town of Heleta (Lower Navarre). In 1787, he left for Cambo-les-Bains riding a donkey with his wife. In the hooves of the animal, he was carrying chocolate on one side and his two children on the other.

The son, of the same name (1777-1857), succeeded his father and became the first industrial chocolate maker in the area. He ran the company and was mayor of Cambo-les-Bains for three consecutive terms.

As for chocolate, it was the first company, in 1855, to equip itself with a steam machine. The company achieved such a reputation that, after the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, it was awarded the title of “Provider of the French Emperor”. Over the years, he received numerous awards and opened stores outside the Basque Country (in Bordeaux, Paris, etc.). The company remained active until 1938, when it was dissolved.

The Noblia Company
Pascal Noblia, who had previously worked for the Fagalde Company, created his own factory, modest and located in the Kiskinia house in Cambo-les-Bains, in front of the Fagalde factory. His sons built the new factory in 1929 and, ten years later, acquired the raw material of the Fagalde factory. The Noblia chocolate factory prospered until the end of the 1960s. However, its activity began to decline. The company remained active until 2001, thus closing a stage in the history of the chocolate makers of Cambo-les-Bains.

Although today no one makes chocolate from grains in Cambo-les-Bains, you can enjoy chocolate in several local bakeries thanks to the store-museum that the company Puyodebat has installed on the road to Itsasu.

Pantxix Bidart Pla