Many people, and the author is no exception, can not imagine a day without chocolate. How nice to start the day with a cup of coffee or tea and a sweet wedge melting in your mouth! Just do not talk about the damage to the figure. Let it excite those who eat it without measure and do not engage in physical education. Thanks to those who came up with this exquisite treat and celebrate the holiday: World Chocolate Day.
Who gave the world chocolate?
The seafarer and discoverer Columbus brought to Spain cocoa beans or "chocolatl", which was greatly appreciated by the Mayans. They drank it bitter, adding hot pepper to it, and endowed it with magical properties. Cortes was the first among Europeans to appreciate the "food of the gods" by adding sugar to the drink. But it was a great and very valuable rarity that only aristocrats could afford.
When the Infant Maria Theresa was made the wife of the French king, she was very homesick in the great Versailles and made it customary in her salon to drink hot chocolate three times a week. Instead of bitter, she made herself a sweet life.
In Russia, under Peter, coffee was offered to everyone in the assemblies. And only once did the Austrian envoy serve chocolate. Everyone remembered it.
Chocolate bars and figures
Only at the beginning of the 19th century, businessman Kaye from Switzerland managed to get butter from cocoa beans. It allowed to pour the aromatic liquid into molds and let it harden in it. Later, milk began to be added to the tiles, first dried and then condensed milk.
A treat appeared that became popular all over the world. Although the recipe was kept secret, the inquisitive minds of the inhabitants of many countries unraveled it and established a new confectionery production. Before the advent of World Chocolate Day was still very far away!
Chocolate capitals of the world
The small town of Bruges in Belgium and its capital Brussels are known to lovers of this delicacy around the world. They produce the most diverse varieties and the largest number of candies and tiles in the world: 172 thousand tons per year.
Zurich leads in Switzerland. From it you can go to one of the first confectionery industries of Caye Nestle.
In Italy, Perugia, Florence and Turin compete among themselves.
In Europe, Britain, Germany, Spain and France are also known. It was in the last country, which experts identified as producing the most exquisite chocolate, was born in 1995, July 11, World Chocolate Day.
Over the ocean in the United States, the small town of Hershey and San Francisco are fighting for first place. But there is still Mexico, Argentina, Japan.
Well, of course, Russia. Our chocolate is quite different from well-known brands. This is a question for everybody. Someone will prefer foreign firms, but someone will prefer Moscow's “Babaevsky” or Samara, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Krasnogorsk, Pokrovsky. Not without reason in Pokrov the only monument in the world to chocolate is installed - the Chocolate Fairy made of bronze.
In the Russian Federation they love a “sweet life”. Shop shelves are filled to capacity. The choice is unusually large: milk and bitter, with and without fillers - nuts, raisins, alcohol, dried fruits and porous. The best designers develop bright and catchy packaging.
The virtues of chocolate
First of all, this is his unique smack of secrecy. Someone loves a tender, melting milk. Another person would prefer vanilla flavor or with fillers from grated almonds and its crushed grains, or with hazelnuts. Recall white chocolate. He has a lot of fans. Although, if you look, it's not chocolate at all. It does not have the main component - cocoa powder. And how good and useful the bitter!
A small lobule causes the appearance of pleasure hormones in the blood - endorphins. Having eaten quite a bit of goodies, we experience not only satiety, but also happiness.
Relatively recently, people started talking about the invaluable cosmetic properties of chocolate and with its help began to fight cellulite, excess weight, edema, increasing skin elasticity with masks, wraps, baths.
This is facilitated by caffeine and the mass of trace elements that it contains.
So long live World Chocolate Day, which can give you a lot of fun! In addition, this product slows down aging, saves us from cancer and dementia, and helps to have a good rest. Even the Mayans and the Aztecs believed that it increases potency in men, and today they consider him an aphrodisiac.
World Chocolate Day: Holiday Story
Formerly, festivals were organized in places of production in many countries. Chocolate fountains were beating on the streets, and now they can be made at home. The Guinness Book of Records contains more than one product from it, for example, an Easter egg from a craftsman from Belgium or tiles made in Armenia weighing more than 4 tons.
Later in France began to celebrate chocolate day as a national holiday. There are so many sweet tooths in the world that this event also moved to other countries. Now everything has become more organized, and each country annually participates in World Chocolate Day.
It is celebrated everywhere in a big way. Chocolate hotels are being built somewhere, walking around the chocolate parks, conducting spa treatments, painting their faces with a liquid treat and, of course, tasting all its kinds.
It is especially festive in Russia in the city of Pokrov. Fans gather here. They will definitely visit the chocolate museum. Tourists will certainly have fun with body art, having drawn various drawings on the face and body, and, of course, will try everything that will be offered.