Welcome to chocolate
What is chocolate?
Chocolate is prepared from the fruit of the Theobroma cacao , a tropical tree whose name means "food of the gods" in Greek, according to "Chocolate: Food of the Gods," an online exhibit by the Cornell University Library.
Theobroma cacao trees are native to the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in South America. The trees are widely distributed from southeastern Mexico to the Amazon River. They thrive in hot, humid areas within about 20 degrees of the equator, according to Cornell. As the popularity of chocolate spread, growers established plantations in other regions, such as West Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Today, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil account for 79 percent of the world's cacao production.
Types of chocolate
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- Dark chocolate has chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, lecithin, sugar and vanilla.
- Milk chocolate has all of the above plus milk fats and milk solids.
- White chocolate contains everything milk chocolate does except chocolate liquor.