Many chocolate lovers wish that they could become chocolatiers themselves but oftentimes don’t know where to start. Beginning with a chocolate making class is a great way to start but it can often be intimidating for people who are afraid to walk in to a room full of strangers with no knowledge of the product they are going to be working with. As a beginning chocolatier I highly advise checking out a few books on chocolate making before venturing out in to the world of cooking classes. One of the best books that I recommend to check out is Chocolates and Confections at Home with The Culinary Institute of America by Peter P. Greweling. This easy to follow book will give you everything you ever wanted to know about beginning to work with chocolate and more than enough of a basis to get you in to a local chocolate making class with knowledge of chocolate!
On a visit to my dear friend Mike’s blog the other day I ran in to a post entitled 10 Interesting, Somewhat Random And Weird Facts About Coffee and I found some of the facts pretty darn interesting. The article really got me to thinking about what fun and fascinating facts I could share with my fellow chocoholics about chocolate so I set about to scouring all of my favorite chocolate resources to see if I could wow you. Below is the fruit of my labor:
• The shelf life of a bar of chocolate is one year
• Chocolate manufacturers use 20% of the world’s peanuts and 40% of the world’s almonds – that’s a lot of nuts!
• 600,000 tons of cocoa beans are consumed every year!
• The film “Psycho” by Alfred Hitchcock used chocolate syrup as a replacement for blood in the famous shower scene.
• Although high in fat chocolate does not contribute to high cholesterol!
• During the Persian Gulf War Hershey’s was commissioned to create a chocolate bar that could withstand high temperatures for inclusion in soldiers rations, these bars became known as “Desert Bars”
• Milton Hershey was only 19 when he founded Hershey’s Chocolate
• After exercise low fat chocolate milk consumption can increase muscle recovery time.
• Due to the higher levels of lead in chocolate versus other foods there is slight concern over the potential of milk lead poisoning as a result of chocolate consumption
• Animals cannot process theobromine, one of the key ingredients in chocolate, as a result chocolate is toxic to many animals including dogs, cats and horses!
• Cadbury is the world’s largest confectionery manufacturer
• Cacao beans were used as currency by the Mayans and Aztecs
• A Japanese custom by the name of “Giri Choco” dictates that employees must gift their managers with chocolate as a symbol of their loyalty
• Chocolate residue has been discovered in pottery pieces dating back to 1100 BC
• Chocolate has been included on every U.S. and Russian space flight
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Photo by chotda.
