Ghirardelli Chocolate
The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company first opened in 1852 and has been in consistent operation since that year. The name is often incorrectly pronounced; the proper pronunciation of Ghirardelli name is “Gear-ar-delly”. The first factory opened on Greenwich and Powell Streets in San Francisco. The Ghirardelli Company operates a factory, chocolaterie, café and soda fountain in San Francisco. There is an area referred to as Ghirardelli Square where all the company businesses are located. The company has a rich legacy of chocolate making with the founders of the company being Domenico Ghirardelli, although he later changed his first name to Domingo.
During the Gold Rush, Mr. Ghirardelli discovered that the miners were willing to spend their hard-earned money on the luxury of chocolate. The first store was opened in Stockton, California. In the late 1800s, Ghirardelli hired local artists to create posters to advertise his chocolate products. This strategy proved to be lucrative as it brought many consumers into his shop. In 1892 Mr. Ghirardelli retired from the chocolate business, leaving the company in the hands of his three sons. Two years later, Mr. Ghirardelli died at the age of 77 in Italy.
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May 28, 2007
Chocolate Candy
Chocolate candy has been consumed and enjoyed for many years. Hawaii is the only place in the United States where cocoa beans are grown and on the large island of Hawaii cacao plants thrive in the warm, tropical climate. Cacao is the tree in which large pods grow up to ten inches long and each pod can have forty seeds, which are called cocoa beans. After the beans ferment, they are dried and roasted and the meat of the seed is then ground into a powder. Cocoa beans contain 50% of fat and when the beans are ground, a liquid is produced containing pure, bitter chocolate liquor. As the liquid cools, it solidifies, forming a chocolate form known in stores as baking chocolate. When the chocolate liquor is pressed, the fat is removed. This creates two results, one being cocoa powder, while the other is known as cocoa butter. The powder is used usually for baking and the butter can be used for making other products such as cosmetics and soap products.
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February 27, 2007
The History of Chocolate
Discovered over two thousand years ago, the Aztec and Maya people made chocolate from the pod seeds of the cacao tree, which they created into frothy, spicy, bitter drinks. In both Aztec and Maya religious and royal events, chocolate played an important role as priests offered cacao seeds to the gods during sacred ceremonies and served chocolate drinks. Spanish explorers discovered this Aztec custom and shipped cacao tree seeds back to Spain. Chocolate was an expensive import, so for the next three hundred or so years it was an elite beverage enjoyed only by the upper classes of Europe. They designed luxuriant silver and porcelain serving cups and pieces for drinking chocolate that represented symbols of the power and wealth of society’s upper crust. In the mid seventeen-hundreds, after hundreds of years of remaining relatively unaltered, new chocolate making innovations changed the very future of chocolate. In the industrial age new machinery was able to mass produce solid chocolate making this wonderful treat affordable to just about all of the general public.
Early in the seventeen-hundreds a Frenchman invented the hydraulic machine, followed by another French inventor who developed the steam-driven chocolate machine. This steam-driven mill allowed mass-production of huge amounts of chocolate quickly and inexpensively. With these new machines chocolate was no longer an oily, gritty paste but became a creamier, smoother chocolate. In 1828, the cocoa press, invented by a Dutch chemist named Coenraad Van Houten, was able to make powder or cocoa by squeezing out all the cocoa butter, thus making the cocoa uniform and far less expensive to produce. To powdered chocolate, Van Houten also added alkaline salts, making it mix with water better and giving it a milder flavor and darker color. In 1875, Henri Nestlé and Daniel Peter joined forces and combined chocolate and condensed milk, creating a creamy, smooth milk chocolate. It did not take long for this to become increasingly popular.
As culinary experimentation continued, instead of just using chocolate in hot drinks and candy bars, people started using cocoa powder in desserts, cakes and other foods. In North America, around the American Revolution, the Bakers Chocolate Company began manufacturing chocolate on a huge scale, while the Dutch produced a fine-grained powder, which they called the ‘Dutching’ method and which is still popular today with chocolate connoisseurs. They soon began making chocolate into such things as various types of candies, moldable treats, baked goods and chocolate truffles. The first recipe for brownies, published toward the end of the nineteenth century in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue, is still a beloved American baked good. Chocolate has continued to increase in popularity over the years, with the average Swiss adult eating approximately twenty pounds and the Americans eating approximately twelve pounds of chocolate annually.