Chocolates are possibly the most loved food and flavor in the world. Sending chocolates by post is a favorite gifting activity everywhere. It is common knowledge that Valentine’s Day is the occasion when there is maximum sale of chocolates.
But there are certain facts about chocolate that are not commonly known. Here are a few of them:
- There was a real chocolate river, back in 1971. It was made of chocolate and cream mixed with 15,000 gallons of water created for the movie- “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”.
- Chocolate was used as money. It was even considered to be more valuable than gold dust.
- White chocolate is not technically a chocolate. It does not contain cocoa liquor or cocoa solids.
- Europeans are mad about chocolates. In fact, Europeans account for more than half of consumption of chocolates. The average German, Swiss or Brit consumes 11 kg of chocolates a year.
- The largest chocolate in the world was created by Thornton’s to celebrate its 100th birthday, weighing a huge 5792 kg.
- The recipe for chocolate chip cookie was an accident. It was the year 1930 when a woman, Ruth Wakefield mixed chocolate crumbs in cookie dough to get chocolate flavour, but the result was chocolate chip cookie. Later, she sold her idea to Nestle in return for lifetime supply of chocolate.
- Too much chocolate can kill you: In chocolate is found theobromine- a strong stimulant. Poisoning caused by this substance can cause dehydration, acute kidney damage, seizures and heart failure. But there is danger of fatality only if consumption of chocolate is substantially excessive.
- A strange fact is that there exists a correlation between the amount of chocolate consumed by a nation on the average and the number of Nobel Laureates produced by the country.
- The pool of blood in the famous shower scene of cult movie Psycho was in fact chocolate syrup.
- There was a Nazi plot to assassinate British P.M. Winston Churchill with a chocolate bar that explodes.
- The scientific name of the cocoa tree is Theobroma Cacoa which means-‘food of the gods’.
- Surprisingly, it takes one full year for a cocoa tree to provide sufficient pods to make ten, regular size Hershey bars.
- Chocolate contains more than 600 flavour compounds in comparison to red wine, which has only 200.
- Ancient Mayans are believed to be first people to routinely grow cocoa tress and make a drink out of chocolate. Cocoa use was taken up by the Aztecs later, but they had to indulge in trade for cocoa since they couldn’t grow the trees.
- The name chocolate comes from Aztec word- Xocoatl, which was a strong, bitter drink made by the Aztecs form cocoa beans.
- Amazingly, for 90% of its history, chocolate was consumed as a drink and not in solid form.
- The Aztec emperor Montezuma II is believed to have drunk over 50 cups of chocolate daily.
- Hershey’ makes over 70 million ‘Kisses’ every day.
These are some interesting facts about chocolates. You can get more information about chocolates by searching for chocolate online. Some facts may never cease to amaze you.
