Thursday, April 10, 2008

Yummy Chocolate Through The Years

  • 1765: Dr. James Baker and chocolate maker John Hannon founded the Walter Baker Chocolate Company in a mill on Neponset River, Massachusetts;
  • 1849: The Italian Dominbro Ghirardelli began making chocolate in San Francisco during the Gold Rush;
  • 1868: Parisian Etienne Guittard comes to California to start the Guittard Chocolate Company;
  • 1871: American Milton Hershey founded his company in Pennsylvania when he was nineteen years old;
  • 1875: After eight years of research and experiments, Daniel Peter of Switzerland created milk chocolate and sold his culinary invention to his neighbor, Henri Nestle.
  • 1879: Rodolphe Lindt invented a refining process for chocolate called conching;
  • 1896: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook introduced the recipe for chocolate brownies;
  • 1907: Hershey's Kisses were introduced. So popular, they now produce more than 25 million Kisses per day.
  • 1938: Nestle introduced the Crunch Bar, the first chocolate bar with crunchy crisps.
  • 1939: Another first for Nestle when they created chocolate chips;
  • WWII: Hershey created the Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar to be included in soldiers' rations as commissioned by the United States government;
  • 1960: Alfred Hitchcock uses chocolate syrup to simulate blood in the infamous Psycho shower scene with actress Janet Leigh;
  • Today: Hershey was commissioned by the U.S. government to create another soldiers' ration that can withstand high temperatures for consumption in the Persian Gulf. These "Desert Bars" are also sold for consumer survival kits.


Are you craving chocolate now?

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9 comments:

  1. Is this stuff you just know because you live a life with chocolate like I know bizarre things about musicians?? Amazing! Of course I'm drooling....and I've decided to request a trip to the Hershey's theme park for my next big birthday...
    Love it!

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  2. Grace: I do know a lot of bizarre things about food, cookbooks, chefs, etc. so I knew most of those facts, but I did have to look up most of the exact dates and find a couple of extra facts to get to 13! LOL at my strange brain. :-)

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  3. Joy Im not, but I made a chocolate dessert I will put tomorrow at my blog!!! if you want to look!and I think is so yummy!!! I love the chocolate's smell Joy!!xxxxGloria

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  4. Fun info! I didn't realize Hershey's Kisses have been around for that long :).
    And oh boy am I glad I still have some chocolate left :))

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  5. Yay, a post on my favourite food - chocolate!!!

    I have tagged you for a memoir Joy - I hope you don't mind:

    http://kitchenlaw.blogspot.com/2008/04/words-cannot-describe-six-word-memoir.html

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  6. I was already craving chocolate before I read this! Now it's hopeless. I'm off to raid the kitchen...

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  7. I ALWAYS want chocolate! This year with our new healthy living food plan, I was delighted to discover the healthy properties provided by dark chocolate. Since it is one of the few sweet things we eat, we are glad to know it is on the "OK" list. Thanks for all the history. Many of my favorite chocolate producers are on your list!
    TM

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  8. My all time favorite - Hershey's Kisses. Didn't realize they're a hundred years old.

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  9. chocolate wow I am the fan number #1 of chocolat.
    I like everytype of chocolate.
    olga.

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