Chocolate information, history and trivia

Chocolate most commonly comes in dark, milk, and white varieties, with cocoa solids contributing to brown coloration. It is a common ingredient in many kinds of sweets, chocolate candy, ice creams, cookies, cakes, pies, and desserts. It is one of the most popular flavours in the world.

Chocolate is made from the fermented, roasted, and toasted beans taken from a pod of the tropical cacao tree.

Theobroma cacao, which was native to South America, but is cultivated throughout the tropics. The beans have an intensely flavoured bitter taste. The resulting products are known as chocolat or, in some parts of the world, cocoa.

The bean products are known under different names in different parts of the world.

Cocoa is the solids of the cacao bean.
Cocoa butter is the fat component.
Chocolate is a combination of the solids and the fat.

It is the solid and the fat combination, sweetened with sugar and other ingredients, that is made into chocolate bars, which is commonly referred to as chocolate.

It can also be made into beverages. The first cocoas were made by the Aztecs and Mayas and later Europeans.

Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor, also known as bitter and baking chocolate. It is unadulterated chocolate the pure, ground roasted chocolate beans impart a strong, deep chocolate flavour. With addition of sugar, however, it is used as the base for cakes, brownies, confections, and cookies.
Dark chocolate is chocolate without milk as additive. It is sometimes called "plain chocolate". The U.S. Government calls this sweet chocolate (someone with a sweet tooth must run the government), and requires a 15% concentration of chocolate liquor. European rules specify a minimum of 35 per cent cocoa solids.
Milk chocolate is chocolate with milk powder or condensed milk added. The U.S. Government requires a 10% concentration of chocolate liquor. EU regulations specify a minimum of 25% cocoa solids.
Semisweet chocolate is often used for cooking purposes. It has high sugar content.
Bittersweet chocolate is chocolate liquor to which sugar, more cocoa butter, lecithin, and vanilla is added. It has less sugar and more liquor than semisweet chocolate, but the two are interchangeable in baking. The best quality about bittersweet and semisweet chocolates are that they are produced as couverture; many brands now print on the package the percentage of cocoa contained. The rule is the higher the % of cocoa, the less sweet the chocolate will be.
Couverture is a term used for chocolates rich in cocoa butter. Popular brands of couverture used by professional pastry chefs and often sold in gourmet and specialty food stores include: Valrhona, Felchlin, Lindt & Sprüngli, Scharffen Berger, Cacao Barry, Callebaut, and Guittard. These chocolates contain a high percentage of cocoa (sometimes 70% or more) and have a total fat content of 36-40%.
White chocolate is a confection based on cocoa butter without the cocoa solids.
Cocoa powder. There are two types of unsweetened baking cocoa available: natural cocoa and Dutch-process cocoa. Both are made by pulverising partially defatted chocolate liquor then removing nearly all the cocoa butter. Natural cocoa is light in colour and somewhat acidic with a strong chocolate flavour. Natural cocoa is commonly used in recipes which call for baking soda. Because baking soda is an alkali, combining it with natural cocoa creates a leavening action that allows the batter to rise during baking. Dutch-process cocoa is processed with alkali to neutralise its natural acidity. Dutch cocoa is slightly milder in taste, with a deeper and warmer colour than natural cocoa. Dutch-process cocoa is frequently used for chocolate drinks such as hot chocolate due to its ease in blending with liquids. Unfortunately, Dutch processing destroys most of the flavanols present in cocoa.
Compound is a confection combining cocoa with vegetable fat as a replacement for cocoa butter. It is primarily used for candy bar coatings, but because it does not contain cocoa butter, in the US it is not allowed to be called "chocolate."

Etymology
The name chocolate most likely comes from the Nahuatl language, indigenous to central Mexico, although it may have been influenced by the Mayan languages. One popular theory is that it comes from the Nahuatl word xocolatl derived from xocolli, bitter, and atl, water.

Origins
The chocolate residue found in an ancient Maya pot suggests that Mayans were drinking chocolate 2,600 years ago, which is the earliest record of cacao use. The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter and spicy drink called xocoatl, often seasoned with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote. Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief probably attributable to the theobromine content. Chocolate was an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cocoa beans were used as currency. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize gruel and honey. From 250 to 900 CE - The consumption of cocoa beans was restricted to the Mayan society's elite, in the form of an unsweetened cocoa drink made from the ground beans.

Christopher Columbus brought some cocoa beans to show Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was Cortes who introduced it to Europe broadly.

The first recorded shipment of chocolate to the Old World for commercial purposes was in a shipment from Veracruz to Seville in 1585. Still served as a beverage, but the Europeans added sugar and milk to counteract the natural bitterness and removed chilli pepper, replacing it with a Mexican indigenous spice, vanilla. Improvements to the taste meant by the 17 th century it was a luxury item among the European nobility.

At the end of the 18 th century, the first form of solid chocolate was invented in Turin by Doret.

Daniel Peter, a Swiss candle maker, joined his father in law's chocolate business. In 1867, he began experimenting with milk as an ingredient. He brought his new product, milk chocolate, to market in 1875. He was assisted in removing water content from the milk to prevent mildewing by a neighbour, a baby food manufacturer named Henri Nestlé. Rodolphe Lindt invented the process called conching, which involves heating and grinding the chocolate solids very finely to ensure the liquid is evenly blended.

From the beginning of its history in Belgium, chocolate was considered a gift.
In 1912, the belgian confectionery created the " praline ", a filled chocolate mouthful which perfectly complied with its gift vocation. To protect the delicate nature of the " praline ", an adequate packaging has been patented under the name of " Ballotin ". Since that time the " ballotin de pralines " became the perfect gift appreciated in all circumstances.

Some say Belgium is famous for chocolate for the same cause that Belgium is famous for diamonds. Diamonds and cocoa beans from western Africa arrived in Europe in Belgian ports and enterprising business people looked to situate themselves as middlemen adding value to the raw imported goods.

Trivia

Foreign names

Chocolate = Spanish

Schokolade = German

Cioccolato = Italian

Chocolade = Holland

Suklaa = (Suomi) Finland

Chocolate = Portugese

Chocolat = French

Chocolate in popular culture

A Deep fried mars bar is a well known food item in central Scotland. Often the fact that some in Scotland eat such a meal is used as a joke on TV shows.

Chocolate in Fiction

Thalian chocolate mousse is a fictional food in the Star Trek universe. It is a delicacy made with a cocoa plant native to Thalos VII where the beans are aged 400 years.

Famous movies stories and tv involving Chocolate

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), a novel by Dahl

There have been two movies starring Gene Wilder, and another starring Johnny Depp

The one with Depp was called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The one with Gene Wilder was called Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Chocolat (2000) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the rigid morality of the community

Hanzel and gretel the famous visited a Gingerbread House

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