Peace, Love, and Chocolate!

We recently learned, according to impeccable sources (AI), chocolate fanatics and others in the U.S. eat about 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate annually, about half of the world’s supply altho the Swiss beat us in per person chocolate consumption.  (24 lbs per person versus our measely ten.) With Easter coming up, chocolate seems an appropriate topic for us, especially as we just attended a class at the  Belize Chocolate Company. This may be the only somewhat productive thing we’ve done here in three weeks.

Belize is a small producer of cacao, producing less than 150 tons annually. The climate works for it here. They also import many tons of beans themselves, which they then turn around and sell to the U.S. and France.

The process of getting chocolate from the giant chocolate pods is relatively simple, although extremely time-consuming if you do it the ancient Mayan way. (1) Break open the giant pods that come in various colors and sizes (if one fell on you from a tree I’m pretty sure you’d be a goner), (2) pull out all of the beans (3) which are encased in a white goopish stuff, (4) then crack open the beans.  Next put them in a sieve basket (video)

and shake them up and down, where the heavier shells will fly out (mostly), leaving the chocolate behind.  (5) That goes into an ancient stone roller “machine,” (6) you being the machine, until you’ve extracted the oil and it all sorta rolls up together. (7) Then add water and you have a very bitter concoction that no one would want to drink.  Add sugar to taste, {8) pour in hot milk and voila, it’s cocoa.  You will probably want to add more sugar. (9) Milk chocolate has more milk and sugar added than dark and white chocolate is simply the butterfat. The corresponding pictures are numbered to fit the above sophisticated description. (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(Video)

(5)

(6) [Should be rolled from top left to bottom right. That's a stone "brick" and this takes some muscles.]

(7) and (8) [The bitter chocolate is in the top bowl, it's being added to water, plus sugar, then hot milk is poured into a small amount to make the cocoa. Most of us then added more sugar.]

(9)

We’re both dark chocolate fans (especially with a good red wine) but I have to confess to peanut M&Ms as well, which really don’t compare to what we consumed here and brought back to our condo.  While we tried to conserve, plus I also tried hiding them from Cute, eight bars later, we’re out and have to go back. And while I’m still not a fan of white chocolate, I will say the Belize Chocolate Company’s tasted far better than any I’ve ever had!

P.S. If you’d like to know more, there’s a good article on Belize chocolate from the BBC at  tps://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220522-belize-the-worlds-true-cradle-of-chocolate. It also goes into the Mayan history of cacao which is pretty fascinating.