National Chocolate Day, on October 28th, recognizes one of the world’s favorite tastes and is nothing short of a special tribute to mankind’s greatest culinary invention. While many specific chocolate related holidays exist throughout the year, National Chocolate Day celebrates all things chocolate. Chocolate can enhance even the most luxurious dessert items. On the other hand, you can get your fix from a simple candy bar. Hint: Try for chocolate with a “high cacao” percentage and low added sugar. As America’s favorite flavor, chocolate is well-deserving of its own day of honor.
“Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies.”
Fun Facts
- Cacao trees are found only in hot, rainy, tropical climates, 20 degrees north and south of equator, just like vanilla.
- The first time cocoa, or chocolate was used as a romantic gesture was in the Mayan culture.
- The Aztecs used cocoa to create a form of “hot chocolate” or as they called it “xocolatl” which means bitter water.
- It took 8 years to develop the recipe for milk chocolate.
- Supposedly the Aztec Emperor, Montezuma – was quoted saying of Xocolatl: "The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food."
- White chocolate really isn’t chocolate. It doesn’t contain any cacao solids or cacao liquor. This sweet treat is made up of a blend of cocoa butter, vanilla, and sugar.
- To the Aztec’s, Xocolatl was much more valuable than gold or silver. When Montezuma was defeated by Cortez in 1519, the conquistadors searched his palace and found huge quantities of cocoa beans instead of gold, silver, or precious metals.
- Cocoa/chocolate is thought be an aphrodisiac.
- Chocolate chip cookies were a complete accident caused when a housewife thought that adding chocolate chunks to her cookie batter would result in chocolate cookies. Instead it resulted in what would become everyone’s favorite cookie. She eventually sold the recipe to Nestle Toll House in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
- Not all chocolate tastes the same. Chocolate from different places can taste slightly different depending on the type of soil the cocoa tree grew in, how much sunshine and rain the tree got, and the temperature.
- The Swiss consume more chocolate per capita than any other nation on earth: 22 pounds each compared to 11 pounds per person in the United States.
- Cocoa pods are the fruit of the cacao tree.
- The first chocolate bar was made in Switzerland in 1819, and milk chocolate was invented in 1875.
- It takes a cocoa tree five years to produce its first cocoa beans (pods).
- The peak growing period for a cocoa tree is a duration of 10 years.
- Cocoa trees grow very, very slowly. In fact, it takes 3-5 years for cocoa trees to grow the pods with the cocoa beans inside.
- Cocoa beans start as a milky white color. If you ate them right away, they would taste very bitter and not delicious at all.
- Cocoa beans are called “cocoa” beans and not “cacao” beans because of a spelling mistake made by English importers in the 18th century when chocolate was becoming popular.
- Cacao trees range from 13-26 feet tall. Sometimes reaching 32 feet.
- In a year, a cocoa tree produces about 1000 cocoa beans. That may sound like a lot, but it’s only enough to make two pounds of chocolate.
- Cocoa flowers can blossom on cacao trees all year around, however the flowers will die within 24 hours if not pollinated.
- Cocoa trees produce orange fruit (or pods) the size of small pumpkins. So where do the beans come into this story?Well, if you open the pod from the cocoa tree, you will find many little beans inside, sometimes as many as fifty.
