Ten Facts about Chocolate

This being the season of chocolate, I thought I would do some research and see what interesting facts I can learn about chocolate.

1. People spend more than $7 billion a year on chocolate. The fact does not state if this is each or grouped together, but I figure that I have significantly helped to reach this total.

2. According to the fact sheet, the per capita consumption of chocolate indicates that each person consumes 12 lbs of chocolate a year. I want to know if this is my limit, like the monthly data usage for Verizon. If this is my limit, I am in big trouble--and it's only February.

3. David Gerrold consumes well over 12 lbs of chocolate a year.

4. In the movie Psycho, Hitchcock used chocolate syrup to simulate blood in the shower scene, which may be why Janet Leigh spent so much time in the shower--she wasn't screaming; she was opening her mouth to catch the chocolate!

It is a little known fact that she gained 5 lbs during the filming of that scene. (OK, I made that last part up.)

5. The first known use of chocolate was by the Mayans from about 250 to 900 A.D. They used cacao for many things, including money. 10 beans would buy you a rabbit, or a prostitute. Of course if you spent all your beans buying a prostitute, you would have no way to keep her happy because you couldn't offer her chocolate truffles.

6. The first recorded case of "Death by Chocolate" occurred in the 17th century when the Catholic church in Chiapas, Mexico issued a ban on chocolate. The townspeople refused to uphold it and the bishop was found dead from poison mixed in his own chocolate. (Even then the clergy were issuing "do as I say, not as I do orders".)

7. More than 60 million Hershey's kisses are made each day. My mother buys most of them.

8. More than twice as many women as men eat and crave chocolate (and this is a surprise to anybody?)

9. The biggest chocolate structure ever made was made in Belgium, using at least 50,000 chocolate bars.

10. People rarely buy chocolate for fat people.

So. Given #10, I have watched each year as Walt buys chocolates for the kids. We've never done gifts for Valentine's Day (such a silly custom), but sometimes a girl just wants to have an excuse for chocolate, you know.

So this year I set about deciding how I was going to treat myself. My first thoughts always turn to See's, the candy I grew up on, but I'm not sure you can actually buy See's in Davis and I certainly wasn't going to drive 20 miles to get myself a few pieces of chocolate. And besides, someone had brought a box to See's to my mother recently and I had had some there.

I thought about getting myself a candy bar, but that seemed too mundane.

I thought of going to the candy store in town but I get all flummoxed when presented with a number of choices behind a glass when someone is waiting for me to decide. And what if they weren't really good, or at least not the taste I was looking forward to.

I bought chocolate croissants for us for breakfast this morning, and served them with strawberry smoothies (Walt found two awesome cards, one from him and one from "the girls.").

I also went to the supermarket and bought a bag of Lindor truffles (which I love) to take with me to the book store.

(I wanted to read a Harlequin romance novel because I've never read one and I figured a good bodice-ripper might be just the thing to read on Valentine's day, but I couldn't find one, so I read this instead...I couldn't pass up the baby feet in the picture!)

There is one of the pen palling bloggers who has been touting her chocolate product. I keep seeing ads for it everywhere, and even sent some to Jeri and Phil for Valentine's Day.

I was recently in the supermarket and noted that it is not available on the store shelves, so I treated myself to a block of chocolate on a stick, which you immerse in a cup of hot milk and let melt for a hot chocolate treat to end the night.

I think I'm all chocolated, now, and able to go for another year before such a splurge! (But I'm dangerously close to my 12 lb limit for 2012.)