Chocolate covered strawberries - so easy. Look for recipe on this Saturday's blog post!
This week's Tidbit Thursday is all about chocolate!
The World's Top Chocolate Loving Nations are (lbs/yr):
1. Switzerland 22.36
2. Austria 20.13
3. Ireland 19.47
4. Germany 18.04
5. Norway 17.93
Chocolate Facts
- Chocolate production starts with harvesting cocoa .The seed pods of the cacao tree don't grow from the end of its branches, but directly off the branches and the trunk of the tree.
- Seed pods are about the size of a football and holds up to fifty seeds–enough to make about seven milk chocolate or two dark chocolate bars. Fresh cocoa beans are not brown and they do not taste at all like the sweet chocolate they will eventually produce.
- Cacao flowers are pollinated by midges which are small flies that live in the rotting leaves and other debris that fall to the forest floor at the base of the tree.
- In 1847, Fry and Sons Company of Bristol, England, introduced the first solid eating chocolate. The family–who, like many early chocolate dynasties, were Quakers– boycotted cacao from parts of the world where working conditions resembled slavery.
- Although we tend to think of chocolate as a solid today, for 90% of its history it was consumed in liquid form.
- Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40% of the world's almonds and 20% of the world's peanuts
- 71% of North American chocolate eaters prefer milk chooclate.
- 22% of all chocolate consumption takes place between 8pm and midnight.
- More chocolate is consumed in the winter than any other season.
OMG - it's now 11.58 pm where I am and.....I'm eating CHOCOLATE!!!! ROFL Fantastic post for an insomniac chocoholic :D
ReplyDeleteI am not surprise that more chocolate is consumed during the winter months. It can be a good pick me up at times. I guess I'm in the 30% who prefer dark chocolate. Interesting facts! I enjoy your tidbit Thursdays!
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