Chocolate is everyone’s favorite sweet but did you know that chocolate originated from the seed of the cacao tree located in the tropics of South America and that the bean has been cultivated there for over 3000 years? For a time, cacao beans were even used as a currency between Spain and the American Indians. Yes, our luscious chocolate beans were used for cash. We better know it though, as the rich and dreamy stuff that melts in our mouths. But we would have never had our sweet chocolate without the Europeans.

Chocolate was originally a drink made with chili pepper until the Europeans decided to take the chili pepper out and replace it with sugar. It was a huge hit, but at the time only the wealthy could afford to drink it. Lucky for us simple folk, in the late 1700’s, chocolate started appearing on cakes and pastries allowing us to indulge also. Then in 1828, Conrad van Haten, invented the machine called the “hydraulic press” giving us our first cocoa. Yes, powdered chocolate. It was the very first Dark chocolate to come about.

Now chocolate is served world wide in just about any shape or form that you desire and is still the number one craved sweet. The myths however, that chocolate causes acne or tooth decay is false. Actually, chocolate has been everything from an anti-depressant to an aphrodisiac. As for me though, give me my trippled layer chocolate cake with extra chocolate frosting and two scoops of chocolate ice cream and I’m set. Bon appetit!