AT Eastertime, even people who never, ever think about the stuff suddenly start thinking about chocolate. There is no outer present than a chocolate Easter bunny, few things nicer than breaking apart and into pieces a good chocolate egg - and let's not forget the juvenile pleasure of dunking your tongue into some gooey mini egg.
So, to add further to your bliss, here are some fascinating things about chocolate you may not have known. All these facts are culled from Sophie and Michael Coe's engrossing book The True History of Chocolate.
Things You Never Suspected About Chocolate
. Chocolate, and the remarkable tree from which it comes, was not the invention of the Aztecs, as popularly suspected. The Maya people of the Yucatan peninsula, and their distant ancestors, the Olmec, had created a distinguished chocolate culture centuries before.
. Although chocolate has been regarded throughout its history as an aphrodisiac, and often condemned as such, the idea that it stimulates venerean desires is probably baseless.
. The Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency, which led the Spaniards who conquered them to describe this as "happy money". The Milanese chronicler Peter Martyr was charmed by a currency which "groweth upon trees". In 1545, a small rabbit was worth 30 cocoa beans.
. Chocolate eating has never taken hold in the East, with the exception of the Philippines, conquered by the Spaniards in 1543 and a possession until 1898. The Chinese eat only one bar of chocolate for every 1,000 consumed by the British. Nevertheless, Cadbury Schweppes has set up a factory near Beijing.
. For nine months of its long history chocolate was drunk, not eaten.
. Cacao is singularly difficult to grow. With a few exceptions, it refuses to bear fruit outside a band of 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south of the Equator. The growing of cocoa is greatly assisted by the presence of midges.
. There are four principal steps to produce cacao kernels which are to be ground into chocolate: fermentation; drying; roasting, and winnowing. This sequence has been in force for at least three millennia.
Of the varieties of cacao, the finest is criollo. However, this now accounts for only 2 per cent of the worldwide crop, while the more productive and cheaper forastera accounts for 80 per cent of the crop.
. The French firm of Valrhona, based in Tain l'Hermitage, employs a full time jury of 10 people who do nothing but eat chocolate all day, testing new products.
. The Swiss are the greatest consumers of chocolate. They eat on average 11 lbs of chocolate a year, while Americans put away a mere 5 lbs.
. Milk chocolate was invented by Henri Nestle and Daniel Peter in 1879. Nestle's dried milk powder was used to fabricate the new chocolate bar. Today, Nestle is the world's largest food corporation.
. During their history, the Jesuits were not only enthusiastic chocolate drinkers, but also traders in cacao.
. The question of whether chocolate was a drink or a food excited the church in Rome for two and a half centuries, as debate raged on whether or not it could be taken in the hours from midnight until Holy Communion. Many pontiffs were asked to rule on the matter. They all decided that taking chocolate did not break the fast.
. When making their chocolate drink, the Aztecs poured the liquid from one container to another to create a foam, which was regarded as essential.
. The substance which gives quality to chocolate is cocoa butter, which most of the commercial producers dispense with, preferring to sell it to the pharmaceutical industry. They substitute cheap vegetable fats such as lecithin and palm oil.
. In 1994, when Green & Black's "Maya Gold" chocolate was introduced, it marked full circle in the history of chocolate making, for it is nade from cocoa beans grown by the Maya people.