History of Candy Bars – Chocolate Bars History

Chocolate, as a drink, was a favorite of the Emperor of the Aztecs, Montezuma. The Spanish conquistador, Hernando Cortez, brought the drink back to
Spain in 1529. It was favorite drink of the Spanish royalty for many years before becoming consumed widely throughout Europe. Three centuries later
chocolate was first used as non-liquid confection in England.

The inventor of ‘chocolate for eating’ is unknown, but in 1847 Joseph Fry discovered a way to mix cocoa powder, sugar, and cocoa to create a paste that
could be pressed into a mould. The resulting Bar was a success. People enjoyed eating the chocolate as much as they did drinking it. The early eating
chocolate bars were made of bittersweet chocolate. The Fry’s chocolate factory, located in Bristol, began producing the Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar in
1866.

John Cadbury created a similar product in 1849, but by today’s standards the original bittersweet chocolate bars of neither Fry nor Cadbury would be
considered very palatable. Then in 1875, Henry Nestle, a maker of evaporated milk, and Daniel Peter, a chocolate maker, created the more palatable milk
chocolate.

In 1879, Rodolphe Lindt began adding cocoa butter back to the chocolate which produced a bar that would hold its hardened shape and would melt upon the
tongue.

At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, chocolate-making machinery made in Germany, was displayed. Milton S. Hershey installed the chocolate machinery in his
Lancaster factory and produced the first American-made milk chocolate bar in 1900. During this decade over 220 products were introduced, including
manufacture of the first chocolate Easter egg in UK in 1873 and the Fry’s Turkish Delight in 1914.

Throughout the end of the 1890’s and the early 1900’s, other people began mixing in other ingredients to create new candy bars. Real attention to the
candy bar was brought during World War I.

In the early-20th century chocolate and candy bars production grew most rapidly. In 1900 the Hershey Company produced the first wrapped chocolate bar,
the Hershey bar, which is still produced. A lot of candy bars developed in that era still exist in relatively unchanged form.

During the first half of the 20th century in the United States alone 40.000 different candy bars appeared on the market and this was the decade that
was the high point of the candy bar industry.

Today candy bars are manufactured and consumed all over the world, and produced to local tastes and environmental conditions.

The History of the Chocolate Candy Bar!

Chocolate was not always Chocolate

Chocolate candy bars are a favorite sweet treat for children and adults alike. In fact, many adults use children for holidays like Halloween just to do their chocolate candy bar bidding. Chocolate bars have a legendary history, as rich as the chocolaty treats we enjoy today.

The chocolate bar as we know it has been around for about a century, but people have been using Chocolate for as long as 4,000 years. It came in a liquid form that resulted after mixing ground up cacao beans with water and a variety of spices like chili peppers, to make a sweet tasting drink called Xocolatl.

Ancient Civilizations

In the 16th Century, Aztec Emperor Montezuma was a HUGE fan of this Cacao drink. He was rumored to consume 3 gallons of this stuff daily. We are pretty sure the Aztec people who watched him in horror as he guzzled gallons of spicy chocolate water were the ones coined the term ‘Chocolate Wasted’ – WAY before Adam Sandler. The Mayans, Aztecs and Olmec’s believed chocolate to have mystical and spiritual qualities. No wonder Montezuma was pounding it back like a frat boy on Cinco de Mayo.

The Mayans worshiped the God of Cacao so chocolate was only available to the most elite of the bunch. Sigh, that is some serious chocolate discrimination. The Aztecs traded with the Mayans for cacao beans. The cacao bean was such a commodity that it was used as currency between the tribes. One turkey hen for 100 cacao beans please!

Spanish Influence

In the 1500’s, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés went to Mexico in search of gold and silver, but returned with chocolate for the king and royal court instead. They used the cacao to make a paste. They added cane sugar and cinnamon to make a bittersweet drink that is known today as hot coco.

Wealthy Spaniards kept this delectable treat a secret until 1615, when Anne of Austria married France’s King Louis XIII. She brought the chocolate beverage with her and it became very popular across Europe! Colonial plantations were then established in regions where the climate was hot and wet all year round to grow the bean. Princess Anne is the real MVP!

The Cocoa Press

In 1828, a Dutch chemist, Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented a cocoa press that facilitated the production of chocolate into solid form. This ushered in the modern era of chocolate by making it affordable for the masses. He also added alkaline salts to the chocolate mixture which helped remove that nasty  bitterness from the chocolate.

In 1847, the first chocolate bar was made in Britain by Joseph Fry and his son by pressing paste made of chocolate into a bar shape. Fry’s became the one of the largest commercial producers of chocolate in Britain and in 1866 began production on their famous Fry’s Chocolate Cream Bar. You still see their name on candy bars today like Fry’s Turkish Delight!

Bring in the Big Boys

In 1904, the Nestlé company, originally marketing condensed milk, starts selling chocolate for the first time after aiding chocolatier Daniel Peter in the creation of milk chocolate recipe in the 1880s. During World War II, Nestlé’s products gained rapid popularity among American soldiers! Now, this small company has transformed into a global establishment, having ownership of all kinds of brands candy and non-candy alike.

Milton Hershey began his world-famous candy company in 1894, selling Hershey’s cocoa as its very first product. In 1907, Hershey’s Kisses finally hit the market, and the company now has expanded into making hundreds of chocolate products.

Cadbury Chocolate began in 1824 when John Cadbury opened his shop in Birmingham, England, selling drinking chocolate and cocoa. Cadbury is also the company noted for creating the chocolate heart box in 1861. So now when you’re alone on Valentine’s Day and jealous of your chocolate eating friends, blame Cadbury! Whatever the case, Cadbury is now a huge company creating lots of chocolate products to enjoy.

Chocolate Today

Now millions of companies specialize in the sale of chocolate worldwide. From caramel filled to white and dark, chocolate today comes in many different shapes, sizes, and flavors. It’s a sweet staple in our lives that bring joy to many children and adults like. So next time you take a bite of your favorite chocolate bar, think about the years of effort and discovery behind the wrapper.

You can buy tons of delicious chocolate products on our main website. From chocolate pretzels to Hershey’s Kisses, we’ve got it all! Don’t be shy, go and check out our huge selection of chocolate suitable for any of your candy needs.

Who Invented the First Chocolate Bar?

The first chocolate bar was invented in 1847 by a company named Fry’s. Its recipe included a blend of melted cocoa butter, sugar and cocoa powder, and within the next few decades, companies invented hundreds of chocolate bar varieties.

In 1900 the Hershey Company produced the first wrapped chocolate bar, the Hershey bar, which is still produced. A lot of candy bars developed in that era still exist in relatively unchanged form. During the first half of the 20th century in the United States alone 40. 000 different candy bars appeared on the market and this was the decade that was the high point of the candy bar industry.

History of Chocolate

Rudolph Lindt added cocoa butter back to the milk chocolate mix in 1879 and created the first chocolate bar that would snap apart and melt in your mouth. In 1893, Milton S Hershey saw the candy making machinery at the World’s Fair in Chicago and decided to add this machinery to his factory. By 1894, he began mass-producing the first candy bars in his factory in Lancaster, Pa.

1847 The first chocolate bar is made by Quaker Joseph Fry. 1854 Cadburys receives a Royal Warrant to be the sole purveyor of cocoa and chocolate to Queen Victoria. In 1866, Cadbury’s sons, Richard and George, who had taken over the business, purchased a Van Houten machine for the factory and began to market their own cocoa powder.

What was the first chocolate bar? The history of candy bars actually began back in 1847. The first chocolate bar was made in Britain by Joseph Fry and his son, who pressed a paste made of cocoa powder and sugar into a bar shape. The chocolate bar was further developed in 1849 when John Cadbury introduced his brand of the chocolate bar.

In 1851, Chocolate was introduced to the Americans the first time. Then in 1868, Richard Cadbury created the first heart shaped chocolate bar for valentine’s day, and mass marketed the first boxes of chocolate candies. After experimenting for 8 years, Daniel Peter made the milk chocolate and joined Henri Nestlé to make the first Nestlé Company.

The world’s largest cookie was a chocolate chip cookie, made by the Immaculate Baking Company on May 17, 2003 in Flat Rock, North Carolina. It was 40,000 pounds and 102 feet in diameter. The giant cookie was broken up and sold in commemorative boxes, raising $20,000 for the Folk Artists Foundation Museum.

History of Candy Bars

Nougat + toffee + chocolate = a match made in chocolate bar heaven. Texan bars were one of our absolute FAVES, as was crying “Sure is a mighty chew!” before consuming them. Nestle did re-release Texans in a wave of 2005 nostalgia, but then cruelly took them back out of our lives again. What a tease. 10. Milk Tray Bar

In 1847, British chocolate company J.S. Fry & Sons created the first solid edible chocolate bar from cocoa butter, cocoa powder and sugar.

FRY’S PRODUCE THE FIRST CHOCOLATE BAR 18th century France produced pastilles (tablets) and bars, but it wasn’t until Bristol company Fry & Son made a ‘chocolate delicieux a manger’ in 1847 that the first bar of chocolate appeared, as we know it today.

When was the first Snicker bar made? According to records, it was created and introduced in 1930. It was the second product of Mars Incorporated. It got its name from the horses of company owners Ethel and Frank Mars. After that, there seemed to be no turning back to its success. Different variants of the chocolate bar emerged.

Hershey Bar History And Information. The Hershey Bar, invented by Milton Hershey from Pennsylvania, is the flagship candy bar for The Hershey Company, with the original version being a square of milk chocolate.Hershey’s milk chocolate candy bar was first introduced in the year 1900, followed by other types of Hershey’s bars such as Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds, introduced in 1908.

Who Made the First Chocolate Bar?

More recently, however, there has been a Guatemalan chocolate boom, and the country has nearly 9,200 cacao farms that produce around 10,500 tons of chocolate each year. The main variety of cacao used is criollo—the oldest known variety and also the rarest—which has a sweet aroma and a light, well-rounded taste.

Which was the world’s first combination Candy Bar? At a time when people were only making all-chocolate or sugar-laden candy bars, Nashivlle’s Howell Campbell made a candy bar with multiple ingredients such as peanuts, marshmallow, caramel and milk chocolate. This candy came to be known as GooGoo cluster.

Chocolate soon made its way to the rest of Europe. Well, the rest of the rich people in Europe, that is. It was a big hit in Louis XIV’s court. In 1657, the first chocolate house opened in London. You could go to the chocolate house, have a drink, play some cards, talk politics, that sort of thing.

A 5-cent bar that’s “more sustaining than meat. ” In the late 1880s, Milton Snavely Hershey, an American entrepreneur, sought to invent a new kind of caramel.

Meanwhile in 1847 Fry made the first chocolate bar. However, at first, there was only dark chocolate. It was not until 1875 that a Swiss named Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate. Meanwhile, the first box of chocolates was made in 1849. In 1861 for the first time, a box of chocolates was made in a heart shape for St Valentine’s Day.

10 Oldest Candy Bars Ever Created

The Mars bar is a candy bar made from chocolate, and depending on the region its produced can include either nougat or roasted almonds. There are 2 versions of the Mars bar, the original being from the U.K, and another version sold in the United States.

Gambia: Gift Turns Into Gain With First ‘Made in Gambia’ Chocolate Bar Sally Jeng/RFI Gambia has begun to produce chocolate for the first time with FH Bites, a new ‘made in Gambia’ venture.

At first, Nestlé sold the chocolate bar with a “chopper” so bakers could make their own chocolate “chips. ” Then in 1939, Nestlé’s Toll House Morsels were born, forever revolutionizing the way housewives and bakers used chocolate in their sweet treats. Another popular product wasn’t far behind.

The first one did not turn out so well, he says, but after many unsuccessful attempts, Hocheimy says it made him more determined to better his craft. Hocheimy now produces 21 bars every three days — not bad in a country that does not produce or grow cocoa in any sort of industrial quantity.

Chocolate originally was just drunk. The first chocolate bar was created by JS Fry & Sons of Bristol, England in 1847. They had discovered a way to mix some of the melted cacao butter back into de-fatted, cocoa powder (along with sugar) to create a paste that could be pressed into a mold.

The Delicious History Of Candy Bars

Fashioned off an ingredient list from 1750, American Heritage Chocolate is an authentically historic chocolate made from ingredients available in the 18th century. It’s sold exclusively at fine gift shops at historic sites, museums, historic inns in the U.S., Canada and online

The Chocolate Drink Made it to Europe. Technically the indigenous tribes of Mexico made the chocolate drink that we love today. It became a hot chocolate drink when an explorer named Cortez in the early 1500s brought cocoa beans along with the drink-making tools to Europe.

The history of chocolate began in Mesoamerica. Fermented beverages made from chocolate date back to 450 BC. The Aztecs believed that cacao seeds were the gift of Quetzalcoatl, the god of wisdom, and the seeds once had so much value that they were used as a form of currency.Originally prepared only as a drink, chocolate was served as a bitter liquid, mixed with spices or corn puree.

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Land Of The Candy Bar

The candy bar as we know it was born in America. So too, many centuries earlier, was chocolate itself. Mexican natives cultivated the cocoa bean for more than twenty-five hundred years before Hernán Cortés took it to Spain with him in 1528. Spanish royalty drank a cold, sweetened beverage made from the beans, but they liked it so much they kept it a secret from the rest of Europe for the remainder of the century. Not until the 1840s did a British firm, Fry and Sons, make the first chocolate bar. The candy bar, agglomerating a variety of flavors and textures—almost always including chocolate—in one piece, was a purely American invention, and it’s still not one hundred years old.

Milton Snavely Hershey, the father of the modern candy bar, had already built a successful business in caramels when he first saw German chocolate-making machines at the 1893 Chicago world’s fair. He ordered some for his factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and began turning out chocolate bars the next year. By the turn of the century he was through with caramels. He made not just plain chocolate and milk-chocolate bars but also innovative items like almond bars, kisses, and chocolate cigars. By 1911 his company had sales of five million dollars a year; by 1921 it was making four times that.

Such dazzling success begat swift competition, and soon a multitude of companies was making bars of chocolate combined with caramel, marshmallow, peanuts, crisped rice, and anything else that might sell. Perley G. Gerrish, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, brought out the first peanut bar, Squirrel Brand, in 1905. One of the first combination bars, with multiple ingredients, was the Goo Goo Cluster, concocted in a copper kettle in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1912, of caramel, marshmallow, peanuts, coconut, and milk chocolate. Its advertising identified it as “a nourishing lunch.” The Goo Goo Cluster is still sold today, as is another bar from 1912, the Nut Goodie, one of the pioneer nut rolls.

Throughout the first two decades of the century, a bewildering variety of candy bars appeared on shelves across the country, most of them fleetingly. There have probably been more than one hundred thousand different candy bars sold in the United States, including some thirty thousand that existed only in the years just after World War I. Nearly every confectioner in the land turned out a candy bar, choosing a name that might reflect a news or sports event, a popular hero, a food, a place, or even a popular saying of the age, like Boo-La or B’Gosh. If there was a classic recipe, it was the nut roll, made with a fudge center, caramel, peanuts, and an outer coating of chocolate. Baby Ruth, Oh Henry!, Love Nest, Old Nick, and Chicken Dinner all were popular nut rolls.

The industry began on the East Coast but quickly fanned out across the country. Since the basic ingredients were dairy products, Chicago became the natural hub for candy bars, and Milwaukee and Minneapolis were major producers. Most of the bars were made and sold regionally, not nationally, so a small manufacturer with a good bar could do well. The typical bar in the late teens cost five cents, and it weighed the same as today, about two ounces.

During World War I the Army Quartermaster Corps, recognizing that chocolate boosted both energy and morale, got chocolate companies to contribute to the war effort by supplying chocolate in twenty-pound blocks. The blocks were cut down into individual pieces and hand-wrapped at quartermaster bases before being passed out to the doughboys. After the war thousands of soldiers returned home with a sweet tooth. Business grew bigger than ever, with some of the new bars, like the Legion’s Buddy, addressed specifically to the returning troops.

When Otto Schnering started making candy bars, in a back room over a Chicago plumbing shop in 1916, he perceived that a German name would not be an asset in wartime, so he named his firm the Curtiss Candy Company, after his mother’s family. He soon made himself one of the most successful and flamboyant businessmen in candy bars. In 1920 he introduced the Baby Ruth, named for the daughter of President Grover Cleveland, who as an infant had been the pet of the nation in the 189Os. In 1923 Schnering chartered a plane to fly over Pittsburgh and let loose thousands of Baby Ruths; each floated down into the city under a small, individual parachute. That stunt sealed the bar’s success. (Although the baseball player Babe Ruth probably had nothing to do with the name of the bar still commonly associated with him, he was the inspiration for a spate of bars in the late twenties. A George H. Ruth Candy Company was organized in Cleveland at the peak of his career, and bars with names like Bambino and Big Champ thrived for a brief while.)

George Williamson owned a candy store in downtown Chicago where, in 1920, a boy named Henry dropped by every day to flirt with the girls making candy. When Williamson cast around for a name for a new bar, one of his salesmen said, “All we hear around here is, ‘Oh, Henry,’ so why not call the new bar Oh Henry!?” Williamson agreed, and he publicized his bar by distributing a free Oh Henry! cookbook, with recipes for dishes like Oh Henry! Surprise Pie and Oh Henry! Stuffed Tomatoes (ingredients: two Oh Henry!s, three tomatoes, mayonnaise, lettuce, and salt). The book was so popular the company started charging for it.

Another candy-bar magnate, Frank Mars, made it big when he seized upon the possibilities that lay in a soft, fluffy nougat center discovered by accident by the Pendergast Candy Company, in Minneapolis. He copied it for his Milky Way bar, born in 1923, and then for others, including Snickers and the Mars Bar.

The first synthetic coating that would stay hard in hot weather was invented in the 1930s by a Minneapolitan named Frank Martoccio. He had been a macaroni maker until one of his factory engines burned out; he found a replacement in a defunct candy factory and was talked into buying the whole plant, and before long he was one of the biggest candy moguls, offering brands like Zero and Milk Shake.

There probably have been a hundred thousand different brands.

The Depression brought lean times to the candy-bar business, and not until the late 1930s did the industry begin to recover. When war struck again, the makers of candy bars once more were pressed into service supplying the troops. Hershey made “field ration D,” a refined chocolate that didn’t melt at high temperatures, and it was packed in kits for soldiers, sailors, and Marines. On the home front, as the supply of chocolate dwindled, manufacturers struggled to concoct new bars from ingredients such as peanuts and marshmallows and gave them patriotic names like Torpedo.

If World War I made candy bars a major industry, World War II made them a worldwide symbol of America. The GI handing out candy bars to children came to stand for liberation everywhere. Hershey bars became an international wartime currency for barter.

After the war candy bars became bigger business than ever. National brands began to predominate, with fewer companies commanding more and more of the market. The golden age of profuse and colorful local brands drew to a close. Foreign countries began for the first time to get into the act, making American-style candy bars of their own. Lately some foreign manufacturers have even begun to market their products in the United States, either buying American companies or selling their native brands. Except in the area of pure chocolate, however, they haven’t made many inroads, and it will probably be a very long time before France’s La Nougat and Japan’s Lotte Ghana Black displace Baby Ruth and the 3 Musketeers in the hearts and on the candy racks of America.

100 Years of Delicious American Candy History

100 years after making dessert history as the first combination candy bar, Goo Goo Clusters still… [+] taste great – all 3 flavors!

In the beginning there was candy, and it was good.

Chocolate has been around for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 years, and was a favorite of the Aztecs. Caramel enjoys a rich history in many forms – dulce de leche has been popular in South America for nearly two centuries. Marshmallows are even more historic, believed to have been enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians.

But nobody thought to put them all together until 1912, when the Goo Goo Cluster was born. Happy 100th birthday, Goo Goo!

In fact, according to the folks at the Standard Candy Company, it wasn’t merely the first time these particular ingredients were mixed – it was the first “combination candy bar” of any type in history. Before that, candies had a singular focus – Standard itself, which launched eleven years earlier in Nashville, TN, made peppermint sticks and chocolates before hitting on the Goo Goo Cluster, which took a layer of marshmallow nougat, added a layer of caramel, and topped it all with peanut studded milk chocolate in a unique mound shape.

The original version, a century later.

An instant hit, the Goo Goo Cluster was a longtime sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry, and while Standard Candy was sold twice in the past century, it remains a family-owned Nashville institution. The candies are still popular in the region, though many people in other places do not even know the nostalgic brand still exists. Not only is it still in business, it is improved. In 1982 the Goo Goo Cluster Supreme was introduced, using the same concept but substituting pecans for peanuts. Then, in 1991, the Peanut Butter version arrived, swapping the caramel for peanut butter. Last year, at age 99, the whole line got a facelift, upgrading to higher quality fancy peanuts and pecans and better chocolate. How much has changed in 100 years? Let me put it this way – if you want to find out who sells Goo Goo Clusters near you, well, there’s an app for that!

I hadn’t had a Goo Goo cluster of any type in 30 years until they sent me some birthday samples, and even at 100 these candies are anything but old fashioned – they are delicious, especially the peanut butter, my personal favorite.

But Goo Goo Clusters are not the only historic and classic American candies you might be surprised to find out are still going strong. A favorite of mine is Cherry Mash, which claims to be the second oldest combination candy and third oldest candy bar of any type still made in the U.S., after the Goo Goo Cluster and the better known Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar. The Chase Candy Company has been in business in St. Joseph, Missouri since 1876. During America’s Centennial celebration, the aptly named Dr. George Washington Chase decided to add a small candy making operation to the second floor of his fruit and produce business, but its success quickly made candy his sole pursuit, beating out groceries and medicine. Chase started with peanut candies and simple chocolates, but in 1918 he hit it out of the ballpark when he created the Cherry Mash, which quickly became the best-selling cherry confection in the United States. Originally called Cherry Chase, it was renamed Cherry Chaser before becoming the Cherry Mash, but whatever you called it, the candy features  a quarter-pound mound of chopped roasted peanuts blended with chocolate over a smooth cherry fondant center. It goes especially well with ice cream!

Cherry Mash is the second oldest combination candy bar made in the U.S.

By 1926 Chase was making more than 500 different candy products, including recognizable names like Mallo Milk, but the candy business got hit hard by the Great Depression.  In 1944, Chase Candy Company was sold to the Yantis family, who continues to operate it today. After a roller coaster series of expansions and acquisitions, Chase is back at a family scale, operating in a purpose built factory opened in 2005, still manufacturing in St. Joseph 135 years later. Cherry Mash is harder to find than Goo Goo Clusters, but it turns up in the most unusual places – like a candy kiosk in New York’s La Guardia airport. They do not have a downloadable app to find retailers, but they do have a “Cherry Map It” function on their website, which also sells mail order.

The company makes a series of peanut and coconut candies, and its line is still very popular in the Midwest – and Texas – but Cherry Mash remains the flagship, and along with Goo Goo Clusters are two enduring, time proven American candy classic representing a century of tradition, and both well are well worth seeking out and trying.

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A Brief History of Chocolate |
Arts & Culture

When most of us hear the word chocolate, we picture a bar, a box of bonbons, or a bunny. The verb that comes to mind is probably “eat,” not “drink,” and the most apt adjective would seem to be “sweet.” But for about 90 percent of chocolate’s long history, it was strictly a beverage, and sugar didn’t have anything to do with it.

“I often call chocolate the best-known food that nobody knows anything about,” said Alexandra Leaf, a self-described “chocolate educator” who runs a business called Chocolate Tours of New York City.

The terminology can be a little confusing, but most experts these days use the term “cacao” to refer to the plant or its beans before processing, while the term “chocolate” refers to anything made from the beans, she explained. “Cocoa” generally refers to chocolate in a powdered form, although it can also be a British form of “cacao. “

Etymologists trace the origin of the word “chocolate” to the Aztec word “xocoatl,” which referred to a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans. The Latin name for the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means “food of the gods.”

Many modern historians have estimated that chocolate has been around for about 2000 years, but recent research suggests that it may be even older.

In the book The True History of Chocolate, authors Sophie and Michael Coe make a case that the earliest linguistic evidence of chocolate consumption stretches back three or even four millennia, to pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica such as the Olmec.

Last November, anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania announced the discovery of cacao residue on pottery excavated in Honduras that could date back as far as 1400 B.C.E. It appears that the sweet pulp of the cacao fruit, which surrounds the beans, was fermented into an alcoholic beverage of the time.

“Who would have thought, looking at this, that you can eat it?” said Richard Hetzler, executive chef of the café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, as he displayed a fresh cacao pod during a recent chocolate-making demonstration. “You would have to be pretty hungry, and pretty creative!”

It’s hard to pin down exactly when chocolate was born, but it’s clear that it was cherished from the start. For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered valuable enough to use as currency. One bean could be traded for a tamale, while 100 beans could purchase a good turkey hen, according to a 16th-century Aztec document.

Both the Mayans and Aztecs believed the cacao bean had magical, or even divine, properties, suitable for use in the most sacred rituals of birth, marriage and death. According to Chloe Doutre-Roussel’s book The Chocolate Connoisseur, Aztec sacrifice victims who felt too melancholy to join in ritual dancing before their death were often given a gourd of chocolate (tinged with the blood of previous victims) to cheer them up.

Sweetened chocolate didn’t appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and sampled the native cuisine. Legend has it that the Aztec king Montezuma welcomed the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes with a banquet that included drinking chocolate, having tragically mistaken him for a reincarnated deity instead of a conquering invader. Chocolate didn’t suit the foreigners’ tastebuds at first –one described it in his writings as “a bitter drink for pigs” – but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain.

By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe, believed to have nutritious, medicinal and even aphrodisiac properties (it’s rumored that Casanova was especially fond of the stuff).  But it remained largely a privilege of the rich until the invention of the steam engine made mass production possible in the late 1700s.

In 1828, a Dutch chemist found a way to make powdered chocolate by removing about half the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, pulverizing what remained and treating the mixture with alkaline salts to cut the bitter taste. His product became known as “Dutch cocoa,” and it soon led to the creation of solid chocolate.

The creation of the first modern chocolate bar is credited to Joseph Fry, who in 1847 discovered that he could make a moldable chocolate paste by adding melted cacao butter back into Dutch cocoa.

By 1868, a little company called Cadbury was marketing boxes of chocolate candies in England. Milk chocolate hit the market a few years later, pioneered by another name that may ring a bell – Nestle.

In America, chocolate was so valued during the Revolutionary War that it was included in soldiers’ rations and used in lieu of wages. While most of us probably wouldn’t settle for a chocolate paycheck these days, statistics show that the humble cacao bean is still a powerful economic force. Chocolate manufacturing is a more than 4-billion-dollar industry in the United States, and the average American eats at least half a pound of the stuff per month.

In the 20th century, the word “chocolate” expanded to include a range of affordable treats with more sugar and additives than actual cacao in them, often made from the hardiest but least flavorful of the bean varieties (forastero).  

But more recently, there’s been a “chocolate revolution,” Leaf said, marked by an increasing interest in high-quality, handmade chocolates and sustainable, effective cacao farming and harvesting methods. Major corporations like Hershey’s have expanded their artisanal chocolate lines by purchasing smaller producers known for premium chocolates, such as Scharffen Berger and Dagoba, while independent chocolatiers continue to flourish as well.

“I see more and more American artisans doing incredible things with chocolate,” Leaf said. “Although, I admit that I tend to look at the world through cocoa-tinted glasses.”

Uncover the bittersweet story of this ancient treat (Amanda Bensen)

Interesting facts about candy bars

A candy bar is a type of sugar confectionery that is in the shape of a bar.

The most common kind of candy bar is made with chocolate, but there may be other kinds as well, like a granola bar.

The word “candy” comes from ancient Indian Sanskrit – khanda means “a piece of sugar.” Years later, the Arabic version moved one step closer with qandi. The Middle English word “candy” began to be used in the late 13th century.

The Chocolate Cream bar created by Joseph Fry in 1866 is the oldest candy bar in the world. Although Fry was the first to start pressing chocolate into bar molds in 1847, the Chocolate Cream was the first mass-produced and widely available candy bar. The bar features a flavored fondant center enrobed in plain chocolate.

In 1912, the Goo Goo Cluster was the first mass-produced combination bar – it included marshmallow, nougat, caramel, and roasted peanuts.

Between World War I and the middle of the 20th century, approximately 40,000 brands of candy bars were introduced.

Snickers holds the top spot for the bestselling chocolate bar in the world. Made by Mars, Incorporated, Snickers has annual global sales of $3.5 billion. The bar consists of nougat topped with caramel and peanuts covered in milk chocolate. It was named after the Mars family’s favorite horse when it was introduced in 1930.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the No. 1 selling candy brand in the United States, consisting of white fudge, milk, or dark chocolate cups filled with peanut butter. They were invented by H.B. Reese after he founded the H.B. Reese Candy Company in 1923. Initially working from the basement of his Hershey, PA home, Reese’s success eventually allowed him to build 2 modern factories.

The Hershey’s Bar dubbed as “The Great American Bar” was first sold in 1900. It became the first mass-produced chocolate in the United States. The bar is made using chocolate from local farmers in Pennsylvania, where The Hershey Company is headquartered. Due to the unique process used to make the Hershey’s Bar, its taste is what Americans associate with chocolate. While the bar is popular in the United States, it is not widely recognized internationally.

Toblerone is a popular chocolate bar known for its triangular prism shape. It was created by Emil Baumann & Theodor Tobler (1876–1941) in Bern, Switzerland, in 1908. Emil Baumann, the cousin of Theodor Tobler, created the unique recipe consisting of milk chocolate including nougat, almonds and honey and Theodor Tobler came up with the distinctive triangular shape and packaging.

Kit Kat was launched in 1935 by Rowntree Limited of York and was originally called Chocolate Crisp. It was later renamed Kit Kat, allegedly after the Kit Kat club, an eighteenth-century Whig literacy club in England. Nestlé acquired Rowntree in 1988 and now produces Kit Kat for over 70 countries. In the United States, however, you’ll see a different name on the label. Hershey has been the licensed U.S. manufacturer of the chocolate bar since 1969.

Milky Way candy bars are not named after the galaxy. The name came from the malted milkshakes whose flavor they originally intended to mimic.

Known as “The World’s Most Expensive Chocolate Bar,” the Wispa Gold Wrapped Bar is offered by Cadbury. It was designed as a marketing campaign to relaunch their brand of caramel chocolate bars, Wispa Gold. This expensive version is actually wrapped in an edible gold leaf. It cost $1,600 per bar.

The largest chocolate bar weighed 5,792.50 kg (12,770 lb 4.48 oz) and was created by Thorntons plc (UK) in Alfreton, Derbyshire, UK on 7 October 2011. The chocolate bar measured 4 m (13 ft 1.48 in) by 4 m (13 ft 1.48 in) by 0.35 m (1 ft 1.78 in).

The largest chocolate nut bar is 2,695 kg (5,943 lb), and was achieved by REESE’S Take 5 (USA) in Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA, on 31 Jan 2020. The bar was created to promote Reese’s first Super Bowl ad. The bar includes chocolate, nuts, pretzels, peanut butter and caramel.

90,000 HP’s first all-in-one touchscreen was introduced back in 1983 (video)

All-in-one computers combining a monitor and a system unit in one case have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and it is easy to assume that over time they will almost completely displace the segment of conventional desktops from the market, leaving the latter only a niche of purely gaming devices. Hewlett-Packard held an all-in-one desktop show in Shanghai.HP 150 in the middle. Source – Engadget In turn, Hewlett-Packard was keenly aware of the trend, presenting in 2007 a line of all-in-one PCs with a touchscreen HP TouchSmart display (Bill Gates himself took part in the presentation), and today it occupies a leading position among the manufacturers of all-in-one computer systems. … In an effort to once again demonstrate its superiority in this area, the company brought all of its all-in-one PCs to the Global Influencer Summit in Shanghai.The TouchSmart IQ770 released in 2007 and the latest examples such as the Z1 or t410 are on display here. Meanwhile, the HP 150 computer, a monoblock with a 9-inch touch screen produced in 1983, the forerunner of modern TouchSmart, should be recognized as a particularly interesting instance. The computer is based on an Intel 8088 processor with a clock speed of 8 MHz and is controlled by the MS-DOS operating system. 29 years ago, such an all-in-one unit cost $ 3,995 in the US. We managed to find on the network a video of those times, which demonstrates the work of the HP 150. See the video at the end of the article.

Talking about the HP all-in-ones on display in Shanghai, the company’s vice president of industrial design, Stacy Wolff, shared an interesting observation with reporters. According to her, there is a clear geographical and national separation of consumer preferences for displays in all-in-one computers: for example, in China, they are more willing to buy 20-inch monoblocs, while in the United States, similar computers with a display are most often ordered. 20 to 23 inches.