Chocolate: A Brief History

(The Child is reading a set of books by Pseudonymous Bosch. The third book in the series, entitled "This Book is not Good for You" inspired the following essay. That, and when he decided I needed to wake up at 7 AM on a Sunday, I decided he needed to write something for the blog until the morning reached double digits. I'm sooo tired...)

Chocolate. A delicious substance made from special beans made in South America. But do you know the Real truth about it?

Chocolate was first used by the Aztecs (1400-1500). They had the idea of using the pulpy juice from cocoa beans to make a hot drink with cinnamon. We now know that drink as hot chocolate.

The Aztecs believed that chocolate was food of the gods (right up there with pork chops and Coke) and only the emperor and nobles were allowed to drink it. Anyone else who was caught drinking it was put to death.

Later, the Spanish explorer (and also big jerk) Cortez came to South America and was gifted this chocolate drink by Montezuma, who believed Cortez was a god who could cause the end of the Aztecs (actually, he did, but that`s another story).Cortez brought this drink back to England and it became very popular with rich men and nobles. Eventually, an English scientist found out how to compress the cocoa pulp inside a shell made from cocoa. This was the invention of the Candy Bar.

The candy bar, over the past hundred or so years, has undergone some major improvements. The Hershey`s Candies Company was opened in America in-you guessed it-Hershey. The chocolate bar has improved so much over the years.

Now, I have some chocolate to eat.

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The Child`s All-Time Favorite Chocolate Recipie:

1 Bar of chocolate (preferably dark)
1 Hand
1 Mouth ( can`t you see where this is going?)

Remove Wrapper from candy bar. Place chocolate bar in hand. Raise bar to mouth. Eat. Repeat.