Taste ‘Chocolate’ at Minnesota History Center
by M.A. Rosko/ FOX 9 News
ST. PAUL, Minn. – ‘Chocolate’ it’s not just a national obsession. We Americans, after all, eat about 12 pounds of it per year. Now, as M.A. Rosko shows us, ‘Chocolate’ is an exhibition at the Minnesota History Center ’ a bilingual traveling exhibit from the Field Museum in Chicago.
Trace the evolution of chocolate from its origin inside the pods of a cacao tree found in the rainforest. The ancient Mayans and Aztecs made a valuable, bitter drink out of it, which was used by the aristocracy, and for ceremonial purposes. When conquistadores brought the cacao pods, as well as other New World plants, back to Spain, the addition of sugar made it more palatable to Europeans. And when the Dutch added milk, thereby stretching the precious cocoa, chocolate became an everyday luxury. www.minnesotahistorycenter.org/chocolate