For the Love of Chocolate’
You know it, that mouth watering substance that could be as illegal as drugs on how it affects our mood when we want it. That moist, luscious delicious melt in your mouth not in your hands sweet. The varieties and shapes and sizes of this old human delicacy withstood the winds of change over thousands of years to arrive safely in the warmth of your mouth giving you that yes! feeling in less than a minute.
I am a big fan of chocolate and will continue to be one as long as my fitness and health levels are maintained to enjoy this never ending love affair. I have been a fan and follower of this chocolate movement from the early age of 3 I presume or earlier.
Chocolates history is a fine one which i will only mention it started as early as 1500BC and moved from the Olmecs to the Mayas then to the Aztecs then to spain after christopher Columbus then it was kept a secret from the rest of the world for over a century to keep the monopoly of cocoa trade their own.
Then suddenly Cocoa gains popularity as a medicine and aphrodisiac.
An Italian traveler, Antonio Carletti, discovers chocolate in Spain and takes it to Italy where chocolate-mania develops: Cioccolatieri open in all major cities. From Italy, chocolate spreads to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In 1659 The first chocolate house is opened in London by a Frenchman. Coffee houses were already popular. The shop is called the The Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll. Costing 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate is a beverage for the elite. The English introduced several changes: Instead of water, they added milk. Some also added Madeira or beaten eggs.
1861 Richard Cadbury creates the first known heart-shaped candy box for Valentine’s Day.
1865 The first gianduja is created in Italy: chocolate mixed with hazelnut paste.
1875 Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, who had developed an accidental interest in chocolate due to his affection for Fanny Cailler, the eldest daughter of chocolatier François-Louis Cailler, experiments for eight years before finally inventing, at age 31, a means of making milk chocolate, using condensed milk. The milk has been perfected by his neighbor Henri Nestlé, a food scientist.
1879 Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé form the Nestlé Company, which later becomes the world’s largest producer of chocolate.
1895 Milton S. Hershey sells his first Hershey Bar in Pennsylvania, using modern, mass-production techniques that make chocolate affordable to the masses.
1900 Milton Hershey creates a town called Hersheyville dedicated to the production of chocolate. The specialty is the Hershey Kiss. Around 1900, the price of cacao and sugar drop tremendously, making chocolate affordable for the middle classes.
1922 Twenty-two years after Hershey’s kisses debut, Francesco Buitoni, a relative of the pasta family, launches Baci, Italian for kiss. His chocolate kisses have a hazelnut in the center.
1926 Belgian chocolatier, Joseph Draps starts the Godiva Company to compete with Hershey’s and Nestlé’s American market.
WOW! and i said i will try and make it short.
Anyway, In the early days when I was living in the states it was basically Hershey’s which i liked at that early age and my taste buds were addicted to that particular flavor.
Moving to England it was a shocking change to Cadburys chocolates with all their different brands and also the Mars company famous for the Snickers, Mars, Bounty and Milky way which brings us to Galaxy! The one chocolate that made the Arab world addicted by forced marketing and clever positioning including the only advertising campaigns that lasted more than 5 years if I am not mistaken.
Over a span of 10 to 15 years people seem to have forgotten the other finer brands of chocolate and when they need a quick fix they grab a Galaxy bar, to be honest you find them anywhere that sells anything unlike the finer brands.
Now I do enjoy a Galaxy every other month or so, but i have a finer taste in chocolate and sometimes prefer to wait to indulge. I do prefer the Lindt over Galaxy any day, but is that the best?? what about Godiva? is it a hype? is it real? yes it is is real!
Is there anything out there that is better than all of the above? well let me tell you something about chocolate and that is once a chocolate goes mass it loses some of its delicious and mouth watering powers, i could be wrong but I sure do believe my taste in chocolate.
I was passing by in a swiss airport last year and happened to notice a different kind of chocolate, not the Lindt that was murdering the airport space with its outlets, no a fine little box of premiere chocolate that has decided to sell some to the world market after 150 years of being a family business. Was it good? was it mouth watering? do I remember it? Guilty on all charges.
Then comes an Italian chocolate that kind of tastes like Nutella, but is not Nuttela. They come in little oblong triangular shapes covered in a golden wrapper and just knock me off of my feet! what is the name? i can’t seem to remember but i will find out and post it somewhere after eating a whole box.
You see me and chocolate combined together make that love affair you know look like puppy love!
Do you love chocolate?
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