This week is the 14thconsecutive National Chocolate Week and it’s hardly surprising it’s been going on for so long really, is it? As far as themed occasions go, celebrating our love of the chocolate bar has to be one of the easiest to do. For this week, I have decided to do a little research into some of the facts behind the Nation’s favourite treat. Granted, none of us will care too much when we’re stuffing our faces, but they’re nice to know anyway, right? And some of them are particularly interesting indeed…
White chocolate is not chocolate!
I chose this as the number one because I think it’ll probably hit home with quite a few of you out there: for every person who hates the stuff, there’s another who adores it (including me!). Whilst the ingredients for white chocolate do come from a cocoa bean, it doesn’t have solid cocoa in it at all. It’s actually made with the by-product of a cocoa bean – cocoa butter – which is milk, sugar and flavouring to create the white chocolate taste.
The tale of the Jewel thief…
A very unusual one, this, I have to say, but rather amusing all the same. A jewel thief once made off with $21 million dollars worth (£14m) of gems in 2007 because he was able to gain the trust of the guards working the bank in Antwerp, Belgium, by offering them chocolate! In all fairness, I’d probably be as easily led in this instance as well…
The very first chocolate bar.
The first chocolate bar had to have been developed somewhere, and you can thank Jason Fry for it. 1847 was the year, which means we have been enjoying ‘chocolately’ delights for 170 years now.
Death by chocolate…Almost.
Thanks to historic papers that reared their head in 2012, a Nazi plot to kill Sir Winston Churchill during the Second World War has been revealed! Adolf Hitlers’ bomb makers coated explosive devices within a thin layer of rich dark chocolate, which was then packaged in expensive wrapping. The Germans planned to use secret agents to place the bars amongst other luxury items that were taken into important meetings, and the lethal chocolate bars were explosive enough to kill anyone within a few metres. The evil plan was foiled, however, when British spies discovered the chocolate being made. They tipped off MI5’s most senior intelligence chief, Lord Victor Rothschild, and that was thankfully the end of that.
A blonde chocolate bar?
We all know about milk, dark and white chocolate, but what you probably weren’t aware of is that there’s a fourth variety: blonde chocolate! Yes, you did read that correctly. Blonde chocolate is actually caramelized white chocolate and was founded and created as recently as 2006 by Valrhona. It’s since gone from a well-kept industry secret to a mainstream delight, but I’m not happy about the fact that I’m yet to try it…
Which is your favourite chocolate fact, or do you have any good ones of your own that you’d like to share? Be sure to let me know in the comments below! There’s few of us here at Coinadrink who don’t like chocolate…
The post Death by chocolate bar? ‘Blonde’ chocolate? Five interesting facts on National Chocolate week! appeared first on Coinadrink.
source https://coin-a-drink.co.uk/national-chocolate-week
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