Post 5 - Summary

For my personal quest blog, I chose chocolate which is so much fun to write about. The wonderful thing about chocolate is that I never got bored researching and I was always craving chocolate! Chocolate is the best thing I could ever imagine in the entire universe. All my favorite desserts contain chocolate in some way. Also, finding the information for my blog was simple and that made it easy for me to imagine and write about. When I looked up "chocolate" the search came up with many different websites, all wonderful and useful. As I went along and found out more information, the more interested I got in the subject, because chocolate is not a boring topic it goes on for ever. As I said in my History post, chocolate may get really expensive and nobody can afford it, what will happen to chocolate? Will Chocolate be replaced with something? Chocolate history will live in our lives for a long time and every person has a story to tell about it. For example, when until I was three years old and tasted chocolate ice cream for the first time and licked the bowl clean. When I get older I can tell my kids that when I was in 5th grade I wrote a blog on chocolate and I did a history, summary, how to and fun facts all about chocolate.

My questions took me to look at chocolate a different way. For example, how did the Indians make the chocolate? I found out that the Indians used the cocoa beans to make hot chocolate instead of solid chocolate. I never knew that about chocolate and I have a feeling that a lot of Americans do not know that either. Tell the truth - when you eat a chocolate bar do you ever think about what had to be done to make that bar? I guarantee that after reading my blog you will see chocolate a whole different way.

Chocolate is a good, solid, topic to study which you can study for ever because as I said earlier, chocolate has a long history. Who can find something better then chocolate? Chocolate takes a long time to make: first you have to harvest the beans, roast them and then grind them. Then different cocoa ingredients are stirred with sugar and milk products. This mixture is heated to produce a liquid that smells like chocolate by now. Then the liquid is poured into molds that are shaped like what ever that chocolate is going to turn into. Then the chocolate is moved through a refrigerated area to cool it and turn it into solid chocolate. Then the chocolate is packaged and stored into a cooled room with other candies until it is put in a truck or boat to be sent to stores where you enjoy your yummy chocolate bar. Don't you think that they go through so much to make your candy? So next time you eat a chocolate bar think about it and treasure it.

Post 4 - Bibliography

Burleigh, Robert. Chocolate Riches from the Rainforest. Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York, 2002.

Kassidy, Emmerson. "10 Interesting Facts About Chocolate." Associated Content. 2009. www.associatedcontent.com.

"Fun Facts About Chocolate." www.chocolate-chocolate-chocolate.com. 2010.

"Chocolate History Time Line." The Gourmet Chocolate of the Month Club .2010. www.chocolatemonthclub.com.

Bellis, Mary. " The Culture of the Cocoa Bean." About.com Inventors. 2010. www.inventors.about.com.

"Fun Chocolate Facts." Squidoo. 2010. www.squidoo.com.

Ament, Mark. " Recipe for Raw Chocolate Bars." Buzzle.com. 2010.www.buzzle.com.

" At a glance." The Invention of the Candy bar. 2010. www.ideafinder.com.

"History of chocolate." Cadbury. 2010. www.cadburyindia.com.

Cullen, Peter. " The True History of Chocolate." Ezine Articles.2010. www.ezinearticles.com.

"History." Hershey's. 2010. www.hershey.com.

" The History of Chocolate - 1900's." DR nibbles. 2010. www.mce.k12tn.net

"About Hershey: Our Proud History." Hershey The sweetest Place on Earth. 2010. www.hersheypa.com.

Ford, Matt. "Chocolate's bitter sweet relationship with the rainforest." CNN.com/Asia. www.edition.cnn.com.

Woods, Samuel, and Gale Zucker. Chocolate: From Finish to Start. Woodbridge, Conn.: Blackbirch, 1999.

Royston, Anglela. How is Chocolate Made? Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library, 2005.

Post 3 - How To.......

How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies

What you will need:

Two bowls (one small and one large)

1 3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chocolate chips or chocolate chunks.

2 1/4 cups all- purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

Baking soda
A spoon

An oven

2 mitts (so you do not get burned)
1 or more cookie sheets
1 cup (two sticks) butter
1 wire rack
1 measuring cup
Tablespoons and teaspoons

1 spatula
Optional:
1 cup nuts
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup carmel chips
1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 375 F

Measure flour, baking soda and salt. Then pour the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Then measure and beat the butter, vanilla extract, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a large mixer bowl until creamy. Add the eggs in one at a time andProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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eat well after each egg. Crack eggs on the side of the bowl and let the eggs go in the bowl but not the shell. Beat in the flour mixture slowly and stir thoroughly. Measure the chocolate chips and any optional ingredient. Stir for about 1 minute. If the mixture is crumbly add a drop of water to make it stick together. Make the dough into balls the size of a tablespoon and put them on a un-greased baking sheet and spread the balls about 2 inches a part.

Bake for 9- 15 minutes or until golden brown. After baked cool on a baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove with a spatula and put them on wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Above left: a wire cooking rack.

Above center: Chocolate chip cookies, just out of the oven!

Post 2 - Questions

1.Who where the first people to discover chocolate?
A: The Indians around the equator.

2.Did the animal eat the beans that chocolate is made out of before people discovered how to make it?
A: no the animals could not reach the cocoa beans.

3. How did the first people who discovered chocolate come upon the beans?

4. Where was the Cacao bean first discovered?
A: It was discovered in ancient Maya Pot in Rio Azul, Guatemala.

5. What was the first people called who discovered Chocolate?
A: they where called the Olmec Indians

6. What did the Olmec Indians use to make the Chocolate?
A: They used only cocoa beans and water.

7. Did the rest of the tribe like the chocolate? Did some despise the it?

8. How did the rest of the tribe react when they discovered chocolate? Did they have a ceremony ?

9. When the Indians discovered chocolate did the Europeans already take over America?

A: The Europeans where not there yet.

10. Was the discovery of chocolate a huge accomplish ?
A: YES!!!!!

11. Did chocolate taste different then it tastes now?
A: Yes, the chocolate back then was very bitter and had no sugar.

12. Did the Indians eat the chocolate regularly?

A: yes

13. Was there sugar in the chocolate?

A: There was no sugar in the chocolate they drank.

14. If there was sugar in the chocolate did the Indians teeth rot?

15. What Indian discovered the chocolate first?

16. Did the Indians sell the chocolate to other tribes?

17. Did the Olmec Indians want to keep the discovery a secret?

18. Did any other tribes make the chocolate but differently?

19. Where were the Olmec Indians located?
A: Near the equator.

20. What year did they make the first chocolate bar?

21. What year did the Indians make the first chocolate?

22. When was chocolate most popular ?

23. Who thought about making different flavors of chocolate?
A: A European man.
24. When did they decided to make chocolate different flavors?

25. What is the ingredients for the first chocolate that was ever made?
A:Water and cocoa beans.
26. Did more then one person discover the cacao tree?

27. What was the first country in Europe that found out about the chocolate?

28. Who brought the chocolate over to Europe?
A: Some Spanish Explorers brought the chocolate over to King Charles the 4th in the form of cocoa beans.

Post 1 - History

Did you ever wonder where chocolate comes from? Who invented chocolate? What is in chocolate? I bet you have thought about it deep inside before. Chocolate is made from sugar, cocoa butter, coco paste, and the most special ingredient, the cocoa bean. A cocoa bean grows on one type of tree, the cacao, that produces a seed called a cocoa bean. When the Olmec Indians lived in what is now Mexico, they discovered a tree with tiny, five petaled snow white flowers and odd looking pods which were someday going to change the world's taste of dessert.


Around 2000 years ago, in Mexico and Central America, the Mayan Indians were hard at work grinding their special drink made out of ground cocoa beans. The drink was sort of like hot chocolate, but the Indians did not use sugar. They drank the beans ground up raw which made it pretty bitter. Before they discovered the beans could produce this amazing, bitter drink, the Mayan and Aztec Indians used the beans as form of currency. The cocoa beans were worth a lot more money than they are now. The Indians treasured the cocoa bean because they loved their hot chocolate. Sixty-six avocados or two turkeys were traded for the amount of cocoa bean it takes to make a Hershey's candy bar. Three cocoa beans were worth an avocado in the Aztec world and 100 beans for a large turkey. If you were an Indian would you rather have 200 cocoa beans (the amount in a Hershey's bar) or sixty-six avocados and two turkeys? Remember, when you are done eating the avocados you can take the pit and plant them to make sixty-six avocado trees! The turkeys are alive so if you get a male and a female they can have babies and get more and more turkeys for dinner. So, what do you choose the sugar packed candy bar or all the food you will ever need?

In 1528 Cortez, a Spanish explorer, brought the cocoa bean from the Aztecs to King Charles the fourth. When the secret got out about this wonderful drink the Spanish became attached to the hot chocolate. As the drink became more popular the Spanish tried mixing it with orange blossom water, honey and spices. In the middle of the next century, the extraordinary chocolate drink was spreading its popularity in France. A Frenchman opened the first hot chocolate shop in London and set the world on fire with the amazing flavor of chocolate. In the 1700's the chocolate houses were as popular as coffee in England. By the 19th century, chocolate had reached almost all of the middle class in America and Europe.

The discovery of solid chocolate was found out by confectioners. The solid chocolate was made from chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and sugar. Thus the manufacturing of chocolate was born. In 1847, Joseph Fry created a paste that could be pressed into a mold. It came to many people that eating chocolate was almost just as fun as drinking it!

In 1900, Milton S. Hershey introduced the one of the original chocolate bars to the English, which soon spread to the entire world. Three years later Milton built a chocolate factory and a village for his workers near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1907 Milton S. Hershey decided to build a park for his workers. The park was great for picnicking, boating and cooling off under the big trees surrounding the park. On Fourth of July, 1908 a merry-go-round was installed and opened with great enthusiasm. All through the 1900's Milton added elements to Hershey Park. In 1971 Hershey Park was was converted from a regional amusement park to Hersheypark the most popular amusement park around.

In the future, chocolate may be so expensive that an every day person will not be able to afford it.The rain forests are getting cut down by human beings and destroying the cacao trees home. If there are no cacao trees left in the world there will be no cacao beans and all chocolate lovers will have to go back to boring, old vanilla. If you want the chocolate to stay in the world protect the rain forests and enjoy your chocolate!

The picture above is of a Mayan Indian carrying a basket full of cocoa beans.