Chocolate and products made from it are so widespread and diverse that, without knowing the history, one might think that a person has been consuming chocolate since time immemorial. In fact, the brown delicacy came to Europe from America at about the same time as potatoes and tomatoes, so chocolate cannot boast of a thousand-year history of wheat or rye. At about the same time as chocolate, bearings, scissors and pocket watches began to spread throughout Europe.
Peers
Now advertising and marketing have permeated our lives so much that the brain, upon hearing about the high content of vitamins, magnesium, calcium, tonic effect or other properties of a substance or product, automatically turns off. It is difficult for us to imagine that in the 17th century any too sweet drink could plunge a person into a semi-faint state. Any tonic action seemed like a divine gift. And the combination of excellent taste and invigorating, rejuvenating effect on the body made you think about heavenly bushes. But on the first Europeans who tasted it, chocolate worked just like that.
With all the paucity of expressive means, the pleasure cannot be hidden
Found by the Spaniards in the 16th century, cocoa trees quickly spread throughout the American colonies, and after two centuries chocolate ceased to be an exotic of the royal rank. A real revolution in the production and consumption of chocolate took place in the 19th century. And it's not even about inventing a technology for the production of chocolate bars. The point is that it has become possible to produce chocolate, as they would now say, “with the addition of natural raw materials”. The content of cocoa butter in chocolate dropped to 60, 50, 35, 20, and finally to 10%. Producers were helped by the strong taste of chocolate, even in low concentration overwhelming other tastes. As a result, now we can only guess what kind of chocolate Cardinal Richelieu, Madame Pompadour and other high-ranking lovers of this drink drank. After all, now even on packages of dark chocolate, by definition consisting of a pure product, there are small print inscriptions with signs ±.
Here are some facts and stories that may be interesting and useful not only for big chocolate lovers.
1. Chocolate has been consumed in Europe since 1527 - the 500th anniversary of the appearance of this product in the Old World will soon come. However, chocolate acquired the usual look of a hard bar only about 150 years ago. The mass production of chocolate bars in Europe began in 1875 in Switzerland. Before that, it was consumed in liquid form of varying degrees of viscosity, first cold, then hot. They started drinking hot chocolate by accident. Cold chocolate stirred better when heated, and the experimenter, whose name has not been preserved in history, apparently did not have the patience to wait for the drink to cool down.
The valiant Cortez did not know what kind of gin he was letting out of a bag of coffee
2. A person can theoretically get fatal chocolate poisoning. Theobromine, which is the main alkaloid contained in cocoa beans, is dangerous to the body in large doses (in this it, in principle, is not alone among alkaloids). However, a person assimilates it quite easily. The absorption threshold occurs when the concentration of theobromine is 1 gram per 1 kilogram of human weight. A 100-gram bar of chocolate contains 150 to 220 milligrams of theobromine. That is, in order to commit suicide, a person weighing 80 kg needs to eat (and at a fairly fast pace) 400 bars of chocolate. This is not the case with animals. Organisms of cats and dogs assimilate theobromine more slowly, therefore, for our four-legged friends, the lethal concentration is five times less than for humans. For a five-pound dog or cat, therefore, even one bar of chocolate can be fatal. In the United States, chocolate is the main attraction for bears. Hunters just leave candy in the clearing and ambush. In this way, in just one hunting season, about 700 - 800 bears are killed in New Hampshire alone. But it also happens that hunters do not calculate the dosage or are late. In 2015, a hunting family of four stumbled upon the bait. The entire family died of cardiac arrest.
3. In 2017, Ivory Coast and Ghana accounted for almost 60% of global cocoa bean production. According to statistics, Cote D'Ivoire produced 40% of chocolate raw materials, while neighboring Ghana produced a little over 19%. In fact, it is not easy to draw the line between cocoa production in these countries. In Ghana, cocoa farmers enjoy government support. They have a solid (by African standards, of course) guaranteed wages, the government distributes millions of chocolate tree seedlings for free every year and guarantees the purchase of products. In Côte d'Ivoire, however, cocoa is grown and sold according to the patterns of wild capitalism: child labor, a 100-hour work week, falling prices in harvest years, etc. In those years when prices in Côte d'Ivoire are higher, the government Ghana has to deal with the smuggling of cocoa into a neighboring country. And in both countries there are millions of people who have never tasted chocolate in their lives.
Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire. A little further north, you can smuggle sand. Niger to Mali or Algeria to Libya
4. Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire could be considered leaders in terms of growth in the production of raw chocolate. In these countries, over the past 30 years, the production of cocoa beans has increased by 3 and 4 times, respectively. However, Indonesia has no equal in this indicator. In 1985, only 35,000 tonnes of cocoa beans were grown in this vast island country. In just three decades, production has grown to 800,000 tons. Indonesia may well displace Ghana from second place in the list of producing countries in the coming years.
5. As usual in the modern global economy, the lion's share of profits is received not by the producer of raw materials, but by the producer of the final product. Therefore, there are no cocoa-bean exporting countries among the leaders in the production of chocolate, even close. Here, only European countries, as well as the United States and Canada, are among the top ten chocolate exporters. Germany has been holding the lead for many years, exporting $ 4.8 billion worth of sweet products in 2016. Then Belgium, Holland and Italy come with a decent margin. The United States is in fifth place, Canada is in seventh place, and Switzerland closes the top ten. Russia exported $ 547 million worth of chocolate products in 2017.
6. The famous culinary historian William Pokhlebkin believed that the use of chocolate for enrobing confectionery products only impairs their original taste. The taste of chocolate is superior to all others in any combination. This is especially true for fruit and berry flavors. But combinations of several types of chocolate, differing in the concentration of taste and texture, Pokhlebkin considered worthy of attention.
7. Because of its strong taste, chocolate often attracts the attention of poisoners - the taste of chocolate almost overwhelms even the terrible bitterness of strychnine. In the fall of 1869, a resident of London, Christian Edmunds, in pursuit of family happiness, first poisoned the wife of her chosen one (the woman, fortunately, survived), and then, to distract suspicions from herself, began to poison people using the lottery method. Having bought sweets, she added poison to them, and returned them to the store - they did not like them. Edmunds was tried and sentenced to death, but then she was declared insane and she spent the rest of her life in the hospital. At the start of her romantic adventure, Christine Edmunds was 40 years old.
8. Chocolate is not harmful for teeth or figure. Rather, he is a man's ally in the fight for healthy teeth and a slender figure. Cocoa butter envelops the teeth, creating an extra protective layer over the enamel. And glucose and milk are quickly absorbed together with theobromine, and are consumed just as quickly without creating fat. The enveloping effect of cocoa butter is also useful when you need to quickly get rid of hunger. A couple of pieces of chocolate will relieve this feeling, and the butter will create a protective film on the inner walls of the stomach, protecting them from damage. But, of course, you should not get carried away with such a deception of the body.
9. In terms of per capita consumption of chocolate Switzerland is ahead of the planet. Inhabitants of the country of banks and watches eat on average 8.8 kg of chocolate a year. The next 12 places in the ranking are also occupied by European countries, with Estonia taking 7th place. Outside of Europe, most of all sweet in New Zealand. In Russia, the consumption of chocolate is 4.8 kilograms per capita per year. The least amount of chocolate is eaten in China - there is only one 100-gram bar per Chinese per year.
10. Henri Nestlé should have gone down in history as the inventor of balanced baby food. It was he who pioneered the sale of infant formula. However, later, when Nestlé sold his share in the company that bore his name, they came up with chocolate, in which the share of cocoa powder was only 10%. The bold marketing move was blamed on consumer health concerns, and the name of Nestlé, who had nothing to do with the beautifully framed fraud, turned out to be closely associated with it. More than 100 years later, Nestlé asked the US authorities to approve the production of chocolate, which will not contain any cocoa. Instead, flavored vegetable oil will be used. The request was denied, but its appearance suggests that another revolution in the production of chocolate is not far off.
Henri Nestlé
11. “Tank chocolate” is chocolate with added pervitin (also called “methamphetamine”). The drug was very popular among the troops of the Third Reich. Pervitin relieves pain, fatigue, increases and prolongs performance, invigorates and increases self-confidence. The soldiers at the front were given pervitin in tablets. However, those who had the opportunity bought pervitin chocolates themselves or asked their relatives to send magic bars from Germany, where such chocolates were sold completely free. Against the background of this story, the following story plays in different colors. In the United States, specifically for operations in hot Iraq (even before Operation Desert Storm in 1991), army medics, together with Hershey’s technologists, created a special type of chocolate that differs from ordinary chocolate in an exceptionally higher melting point. They didn't think of coming up with a special packaging like a tube, but immediately developed a new variety.
"Tank chocolate"
12. An entire book is devoted to the question of whether the consumption of chocolate is contrary to Christian morality. It was written and published in the middle of the 17th century by Antonio de Lyon Pinello. The book is a valuable compilation of facts and information about how the Catholic Church felt about chocolate. For example, in Mexico, the discussion about chocolate and whether the use of this drink breaks the fast was so heated that the church fathers sent a special deputation to Pope Pius V. such nastiness cannot be considered a pleasure. Therefore, chocolate lovers do not break the fast. But later, at the end of the 16th century, they learned to make coffee sweet, and the drink was immediately recognized as sinful. There have even been cases of persecution of chocolate sellers by the Holy Inquisition.
13. The cocoa beans themselves do not taste like chocolate. After removing from the fruit, the protective film of gelatin is removed from the beans and left in the air. The incipient fermentation (fermentation) process is allowed to develop for several days. Then the beans are thoroughly cleaned again and fried at a fairly low temperature - up to 140 ° C. Only then do the beans acquire the characteristic taste and aroma of chocolate. So the divine aroma is the smell of rotten and roasted cocoa beans.
A 100-gram bar of chocolate requires about 900-1000 beans.
14. Truffles and absinthe, hay and rose petals, wasabi and cologne, onions and wheat, bacon and sea salt, curry peppers - whatever is added to chocolate by couturiers from cocoa paste, who proudly call themselves chocolatier! Moreover, in the description of their products, they not only emphasize the subtlety and unusualness of its taste. They consider their delights almost a struggle with the system - not everyone, they say, will find the strength to go against the current and make the world brighter. It is good for the Swarovski company - as they have floated with the flow from the moment of their foundation, they continue to float. “The Boutiqe Box” is a plain chocolate (from the finest cocoa, of course) sprinkled with golden coconut flakes. Everything is placed in a box decorated with branded crystals. Elegance as old as the world costs about $ 300.
Chocolate from Swarovski
15. The creative thought of the creators of chocolate extends not only to the composition of the product. Sometimes the thought of designers enclosing trivial tiles or bars in completely unusual shapes deserves admiration. And if chocolate sofas, shoes or mannequins seem to be overkill, then dominoes, LEGO constructors or a set of chocolate pencils look very original and stylish. At the same time, the objects are functional: with the help of dominoes you can “hammer the goat”, assemble a small car from the LEGO set, and draw chocolate pencils no worse than wooden ones. They even come with a chocolate sharpener.
