Summary

The first people to discover the cocoa beans were the Mayans in 600 A.D.  While the Mayans drank chocolate, the Aztecs invented chocolate to eat 3, 100 years ago.  On one of his trips to America, Columbus found cocoa beans in a Mayan trading canoe and brought them to America and Spain.  The Americans, French, Spanish and Swiss all started their own chocolate companies.  

I love chocolate so much that I wanted to know not only about the history of chocolate, but also about chocolate today.  My favorite chocolate, milk chocolate, is not the healthiest type of chocolate, but rather dark chocolate.  Just like the boy in the movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I could swim in a milk chocolate waterfall if I visit the only chocolate waterfall today in Australia.

If it were not for Columbus finding the cocoa beans on a Mayan trading boat, the Aztecs trying to make beer and the Mayans who made the chocolate drink, we would not be able to eat chocolate bars and drink chocolate milk or hot cocoa.  We would not have chocolate eggs, chocolate ice cream, chocolate Easter bunnies, nor many other chocolate-covered sweets. Thank goodness that so many people in history loved chocolate as much as I do! 

Bibliography

1. Lopez, Ruth.  Chocolate The Nature of indulgence.

New York: Abrams in association with the Field Museum, 2002.

2. Middelboro School.  The Tree, and The Maya.  2009. 

http://www.middelboro.k12.ma.us/Middelboro/CHO/Chocolate.htm#CandyBar 

3. 2009.  http://www.answer.com/topic/chocolate

4. World's biggest chocolate waterfall in Melbourne. 2009.

 http://news.opodo.co.uk/articles/2009-03-06/19062265-Worlds-biggest.php 

5. Chocolate was invented 3100 years ago by the Aztecs-but they where trying to make beer.

2009 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-493335/Chocolate-invented-3-100-years-ago-Aztecs--trying-make-beer.html

6. Sandra Boyntono.  April 2nd 2009  http://www.aphrodite-chocolate.co.uk/chocolate_health_benefits.html 

7. 2009. http://wiki.answer.com/Q/What-are-the-ingreidients-of-chocolate 

8.Markle, Sandra.   Chocolate: a sweet history.  Grosset & Dunlap, 2005.

How to make Hot chocolate

This recipe is from a video from the website: http://www.answers.com/topic/chocolate .

Needed items: whole milk, heavy cream, sugar, semisweet chocolate chips, chocolate bar, whipped cream, vanilla extract, a pan, a whisk, a bowl, 1, 1/2, and 1/4 cups, a teaspoon, a cup, and a grater.

1. Pour 1 cup of whole milk into a bowl.

2. Then pour 1/2 cup of heavy cream into the bowl with the milk.

3. Then add 1/4 cup of sugar.

4. Pour it into a pan, turn the stove on high and whisk until just before it boils.

5. Then add 1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips.

6. After you add the chocolate chips whisk them till they are melted.

7. Then add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

8. After you have done that, poor it in a cup and add whipped cream.

9. You are not finished yet you still have to top it with a freshly grated chocolate bar, to make it extra good and delishas.

10. Bon Appetit or Bon Appedrink, hope it taste good to you!

Chocolate timeline

This Timeline is from a book called :CHOCOLATE The Nature of indulgence; in the Mill Valley Public Library,by Ruth Lopez.

A.D.600 The Maya establish the earliest known cocoa plantation in the Yucatan.

1200 Aztecs begin their rule Mexico, demanding tributes of cocoa,among other products, from conquered territories.

1502 On his fourth voyage to America, Columbus captures a Maya trading canoe in Guanaja and finds in the cargo "almonds" that appear to be used as a currency. Columbus's son describes how,when beans were spilled, the Maya scrambled after them " as if their eyes had dropped out of their sockets"

1732 Fenchman Monsieur Dubuisson invents a table for grinding cocoa that is heated underneath to hasten the process.

1765 Walter Baker & Company opens the first chocolate mill in the United States.


1780 The first factory using machines to make chocolate is established in Barcelona.


1795 J.S. Fry & Sons in England grinds cocoa beans using steam power.


1819 Francois-Louis Cailler opens the first chocolate factory in Switzerland after studying in Italy.


1852 Domingo Ghirardelli, an Italian immigrant, opens a chocolate factory in San Francisco.


1868 Etienne Guittard establishes a chocolate business in San Francisco after studying in France.


1875 Swiss inventor Daniel Peter creates milk chocolate using Henri Nestle's condensed milk product.


1879 Rodolphe Lindt of Switzerland invents conching, a process that creates a smoother-eating chocolate and
revolutionizes chocolate making. The process is still used today.


1894 Pennsylvania candymaker Milton Hershey establishes a chocolate company to coat his caramels; he also creates
the first Hershey bars.


1996 Sharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, founded in Berkeley, Califonia, offers its first products for cooks, including a
bittersweet chocolate with 70 percent cocoa.


1998 Lindt & Spruengli acquires Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, combining three venerable chocolate firms dating back
to the nineteenth century