CHOCOLATE

Welcome back here a Twist of Yohan. Today I'm talking about a food that we all have a craving for and a food that is desired all over the world. Chocolate!

What is your favorite kind?

Let’s start with wondering around in the world of chocolate.

What is chocolate? Chocolate or cocoa is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods.

Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, the dried and fermented seeds of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). A small, 4–8 m tall (15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree that is native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. The scientific name for this tree is, Theobroma, what means "food of the gods". The fruit, called a cocoa pod, is ovoid, about 15–30 cm (6–12 in) long and 8–10 cm (3–4 in) wide, the color is ripening yellow to orange, and weighing about 500 g (1.1 lbs.) when ripe. The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop its distinct flavor. After fermentation, the seeds are dried, cleaned, and roasted. The shell is removed to produce nibs, which are then ground to cocoa mass.

Once the cocoa mass is liquefied by heating, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor may also be cooled and processed into its two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Baking chocolate, also called bitter chocolate, contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions without any added sugar. Powdered baking cocoa, which contains more fiber than cocoa butter, can be processed with alkali to produce Dutch cocoa. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids.

Cocoa is a variant of cacao, likely due to confusion with the word coco. It is ultimately derived from kakaw(a). The word Chocolate is a Spanish loanword, first recorded in English in 1604, and first recorded in Spanish in 1579.The word for chocolate drink in early Nahuatl texts is cacahuatl meaning "cacao water", which chocolate does not immediately derive from. The term "chocolatier", for a chocolate confection maker, is recorded from 1859

The history behind chocolate is quite interesting. Evidence for the domestication of the cacao tree exists as early as 5300 BP in South America, before it was introduced to Mesoamerica.

There is evidence the Olmecs, the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, fermented the sweet pulp surrounding the cacao beans into an alcoholic beverage. Chocolate was extremely important to several Mesoamerican societies, and cacao was considered a gift from the gods by the Mayans and the Aztecs. The cocoa bean was used as a currency as well across civilizations and was used in ceremonies, as a tribute to leaders and gods but also as a medicine. Chocolate in known in Mesoamerica was a bitter drink, flavored with additives such as vanilla, earflower and chili. It was capped with a dark brown foam created by pouring the liquid from a height between containers. 1585 is the year for the first official recording of a shipment of cocoa beans to Europe. Chocolate was and still is believed to be an aphrodisiac and medicine, and spread across Europe in the 17th century. It was mostly consumed as a drink. The drink was sweetened and served warm, flavored with familiar spices known at the time.

The traditional types of chocolate are dark, milk and white. All of them contain cocoa butter. Plain (or dark) chocolate, as it name suggests, is a form of chocolate that is similar to pure cocoa liquor, although is usually made with a slightly higher proportion of cocoa butter.  

In milk chocolate, the non-fat cocoa solids are partly or mostly replaced by milk solids.

In white chocolate, they are all replaced by milk solids, hence its ivory color. An additional popular form of eating chocolate is gianduja. Gianduja is made by incorporating nut paste (typically hazelnut) to the chocolate paste.

Other types of chocolate are baking chocolate, couverture chocolate (used for coating), compound chocolate (a lower-cost alternative) and modeling chocolate. Modeling chocolate is a chocolate paste made by melting chocolate and combining it with corn syrup, glucose syrup, or golden syrup.

Chocolate is one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world, and many foodstuffs involving chocolate exist, particularly desserts, including cakes, pudding, mousse, chocolate brownies, and chocolate chip cookies.

Many candies are filled with or coated with sweetened chocolate. Chocolate bars, either made of solid chocolate or other ingredients coated in chocolate, are eaten as snacks. And don't forget the gifts made out of chocolate and molded into different shapes such as eggs, hearts, and coins. These chocolate treats are traditional on certain holidays, like Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, and Hanukkah. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, such as chocolate milk and hot chocolate, and in some alcoholic drinks, such as crème de cacao.

What is your favorite chocolate? How do you like to eat this culinary delight? Let me know in the comments below if you like. I would love to hear your favorite recipe with chocolate!

Thank you for your time and I hope you learned some more about this delightful treat!

I'm signing off for now and until we meet again here at A Twist of Yohan.