BOOK REVIEWS #10 (The story of Chocolate)

This story tells the history of chocolate. So many people participated in advancement of chocolate.

The beginning of chocolate's history is a thousand years ago. The people lived in the rainforest in central America, Mayan tasted pods of cocoa trees. They let the beans of cocoa trees rot under banana leaves, and dried them in the sun, then ground the roasted beans into a paste, and in conclusion stirred them in water with spices. They drunk them for pleasure. But to tell the truth, it was very bitter. And then, Mayan began to cultivate cocoa trees. Even more, Mayan kings and priests drunk it every day, and cocoa beans used as tool of a ceremony in a wedding, or as money. Chocolate is so important for Mayan. In evidence of that, they painted cocoa trees on their pots, walls... everything!
Hundreds of years later, a group of merchants visited Mayan village to find exotic goods to dedicate to their emperor. They are called Aztecs. Mayans presented Aztecs cocoa beans. Aztec merchants brought back them, and emperor had a liking for them. But getting cocoa beans was hard for Aztecs, so poor people couldn't get them. A chocolate dream of the poor spread rapidly. They thought that chocolate came with the god, Quetzalcoatl from a paradise. They built grand temples to deify Quetzalcoatl, and offered chocolate drinks.
In 1519, a Spanish explorer, Hernan Cortes invaded Aztec. They had many battles. Emperor of Aztec, Montezuma wanted to make peace, the battles ended. Montezuma gave Cortes chocolate drink. But Cortes kept Aztec under Cortes' control. In 1528, Cortes carried back so many treasures of Aztec including cocoa beans. After that, Spanish prince, Philip heard about the drink, and sent to central America for some Aztecs. He got chocolate paste from them, and made it more sweeter and hotter. A gossip of chocolate spread, and drinking chocolate is all the rage with rich people.
Improvement of many equipments brought big business of turning cocoa beans into chocolate drinks. In 1847, an English chocolate maker succeeded making chocolate bar by trial and error! With this as, so many chocolate makers started making chocolate bar, and there was a trend for trying to give birth to new style of chocolate. In 1883, one candlemaker made delicious milk chocolate.
By the 20th century, the today's methods of making chocolate bars accomplished, and so many chocolate makers competed to invent new great chocolate. In 1907, Milton Hershey made new shape chocolate. It named "Kisses" and it was a big hit. In 1912, an American candy maker, Howell Campbell made first mixed chocolate snack. He stirred peanuts, caramel and marshmallows into chocolate, and he called it "Goo Goo Cluster". That same year, another big invention was born. A Belgian chocolate maker, Jean Neuhaus invented hard chocolate shells to stuff mixed chocolate in them. After that, so many factories (large or small) got heated about making original chocolate snack.
In 1824, John Cadbury opened a tea and coffee shop in England. He also sold original chocolate drink. After his shop succeeded, he organized a cocoa and chocolate factory. In 1911, Frank and Ethel Mars began to sell homemade butter-cream candies. In 1923, a melted milk chocolate bar they made caught on! It was nougat with caramel and milk chocolate on its top. After that, in 1941, their son named Forrest invented never melt with body temperature chocolate snack. It's sugar-coated chocolate drops. They named it M&M's, because the chocolate drops were made by Mars and an American, Bruce Murrie gave some money for their project. Now, we can buy it all over the world.

I really like chocolate! But I didn't know the history of chocolate. I'm glad to know about that.



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