Chocolate A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light
By Mort Rosenblum
Comments
1. And everyone in this small world is stocking up with chocolate for the holidays - only Hershey's Michael Weller alimni director, takes three bars from his drawer. They owe everything to this chocolate. It may not be the best in the world, but who dares to say so? This is still Hershey's best kept secret.
2. My discovery was no accident. I had gone to the Ivory Coast to find out what war might do to the world's principal cacao crop. Fine chocolate depends on pampered beans from small peoduction plantations in South America and Madigascar. But that was a small part of picture. The big factories like Hershey, consume nearly a million tons a year of foratero from West Africa's chocolate coast.
3. Cacoa farming is hard enough on orderly plantations, where crews can work methodically, with some gasoline - powered help and facilities for drying the beans. For dirt - poor African farmers, conditions range from primitive to prehistoric.
4. "It takes years to build a plantation," he said. "It cannot be forced or pushed too quickly, or there'll be an imbalance. And without balance, it is a disaster. Each step must be taken carefully, with thought toward the next. Above all you have to think of yourself as immortal.
5. Coffee is not easy to grow, but cacao is a killer. The first trees in Africa were planted in 1822, right next to Terreiro Velho, by Portuguese settlers who brought seedlings from Brazil.
Questions -
1. What did the director from Hershey's mean that it was their "Best kept Secret?"
2. What war is going on in Africa that the author was afraid of?
3. Why are the plantations so poor when companies like Hershey's are buying tons of cacao?
4. What made the Portuguese bring the seedlings from Brazil?
Vocabulary -
1. painstakingly - careful and diligent effort.
2. blasphemy - an act of cursing or reviling God.
3. irreparable -not reparable; incapable of being rectified, remedied, or made good: an irreparable mistake.
literary terms -
settings - the Ivory Coast and Madigascar.
exposition - plantations throughout Africa.
Outline -
Next to coffee, the cacao plant is one of the most popular to grow in Africa. It is also the hardest because it takes a lot of hard work and needs the most attention of any plant there is. The farmers work very hard and under extreme conditions. A lot goes into that bar of chocolate we take for granted.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Chocolate
Chocolate A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light
Comments -
1.By the late 1800's, Europeans were used to chocolate, and they wanted more. It was time for industrial advances. Germans were early masters of big chocolate. Five brothers named Stollwerck were obsessed with finding better ways to do things at their fast growing factory.
2. In the United States, Forest Mars and his sons fought bitterly among themselves before shaping a company that squared off against a common foe, Hershey. Their war was over market share.
3. These days, the company Nestle built now counts $65.5 billion a year in sales, and about 12 percent of that is chocolate. Nestle nearly bought Hershey Foods in 2002 for something close to $11 billion.
4. Big producers use complex production chains to ensure clean and consistent repititions of exactly what is ordered. The Mars family loses no sleep worrying that someone will stamp an off-center m on one of their little candies. A Cadbury bar tastes pretty much the same, anywhere and anytime, over its very long life span.
5. The success of Godiva is partly because so many people believe that Belgian chocolate is superior to all others. From my first day on the chocolate trail, I was obsessed by this obvious and overriding question: Who does make the best chocolate?
Questions -
1. With such a large market, why is there so much competition?
2. What started the feud between Mars and Hershey?
3. Why do people believe that foreign chocolate is superior to American?
4. What is the major difference between dark and milk chocolate?
Vocabulary -
1.inexplicably - not explicable; incapable of being accounted for or explained.
2. genteel - well-bred or refined; polite; elegant; stylish.
3. conglomerates - a corporation consisting of a number of subsidiary companies or divisions in a variety of unrelated industries, usually as a result of merger or acquisition.
Literay Terms -
1.settings - factories throughout Europe and the US.
2.exposition - All throughout Europe, chocolatiers experiment with chocolate and elements from their own country.
Outline -
Chocolatiers experiment and have great success' throughout Europe and the United States. The competition becomes fierce with undercutting and stealing of ideas. Major companies feud with each other while tryingt to become number 1.
Comments -
1.By the late 1800's, Europeans were used to chocolate, and they wanted more. It was time for industrial advances. Germans were early masters of big chocolate. Five brothers named Stollwerck were obsessed with finding better ways to do things at their fast growing factory.
2. In the United States, Forest Mars and his sons fought bitterly among themselves before shaping a company that squared off against a common foe, Hershey. Their war was over market share.
3. These days, the company Nestle built now counts $65.5 billion a year in sales, and about 12 percent of that is chocolate. Nestle nearly bought Hershey Foods in 2002 for something close to $11 billion.
4. Big producers use complex production chains to ensure clean and consistent repititions of exactly what is ordered. The Mars family loses no sleep worrying that someone will stamp an off-center m on one of their little candies. A Cadbury bar tastes pretty much the same, anywhere and anytime, over its very long life span.
5. The success of Godiva is partly because so many people believe that Belgian chocolate is superior to all others. From my first day on the chocolate trail, I was obsessed by this obvious and overriding question: Who does make the best chocolate?
Questions -
1. With such a large market, why is there so much competition?
2. What started the feud between Mars and Hershey?
3. Why do people believe that foreign chocolate is superior to American?
4. What is the major difference between dark and milk chocolate?
Vocabulary -
1.inexplicably - not explicable; incapable of being accounted for or explained.
2. genteel - well-bred or refined; polite; elegant; stylish.
3. conglomerates - a corporation consisting of a number of subsidiary companies or divisions in a variety of unrelated industries, usually as a result of merger or acquisition.
Literay Terms -
1.settings - factories throughout Europe and the US.
2.exposition - All throughout Europe, chocolatiers experiment with chocolate and elements from their own country.
Outline -
Chocolatiers experiment and have great success' throughout Europe and the United States. The competition becomes fierce with undercutting and stealing of ideas. Major companies feud with each other while tryingt to become number 1.
Chocolate
Chocolate A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light
By Mort Rosenblum
Comments -
1. A half millenium ago, a canoe full of Indians rowed out to an ungainly floating house anchored at Guanaja, a palm-flecked island off thre Honduran coast. Christopher Columbus had stopped by on the way home from his fourth and last trip to America, still hopeful he might find useful riches beyond an expanse of alien real estate. The Indians offered what he took to be a handful of shriveled almonds. He was mystified when a few dropped to the bottom of their canoe, his son reported later, and "they scrambled for them as though they were eyes that had fallen out of their headfs." But Columbus's Mayan was no better than the natives' Spanish. He returned to Spain empty handed.
2. Beyond industrial candymakers with brands we all recognize, chocolate comes in two flavors. There are those who make chocolate from beans, from the Swiss-based behemoth Barry Callebaut to such specialists as Valrhona. And there are artisansknown as fondeurs - the word means "melters" - who turn this base chocolate into high art.
3. Spain dominated the early cacao trade. As demand increased for chocolate in Europe, kings in Madrid kept close watch on their lucrative crop. After a century, though, their monopoly was threatened. Portuguese colonizers grew cacao in Brazil, and Dutch sailors also brought trees to Southeast Asia.
4. Chocolate, coffee, and tea all captivated Europe at about the same time, and each made its impact. Coffee, the cheapest, was a man's drink, taken in clublike public houses along with another exotic import, tobacco. Tea was twice as expensive as coffee, with more genteel following among both males and females. But, after all, it was only hot water and wet leaves. Chocolate, at double the price of tea, was the noble newcomer.
5. In 1875, after eight years of trying, the Swiss inventor Daniel Peter worked out a way to combine milk with chocolate. He was helped by Henri Nestle, whose dabbling in dairy science evolved into the largest food empire on earth. No 0ne had been able to mix fat in chocolate with water in milk. Nestle condensed milk, eliminating the water.
Questions -
1. Since Columbus' men loved the chocolate so much, why didn't they try to find out what it was or try to get some to bring back with them?
2. What made chocolate such a big deal throughout Europe?
3. What made Nestle think that adding milk to chocolate would make it taste better?
4. Why is chocolate compared to coffee and tea?
Vocabulary -
1. artisans - A skilled manual worker; a craftsperson.
2. alchemy - a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
3. lucrative - profitable; moneymaking; remunerative: a lucrative business.
Literary Terms -
1. Setting - most of Europe and the United States.
2.Exposition - Europeans fight to gain control of the chocolate market.
Outline -
Christopher Columbus is offerred chocolate by the Indians while on his last trip home from America. Then chocolate made its way throughout Europe and America where it was transformed in many ways to become a very high commodity. Most countries couldn't keep up with the demand the people had for chocolate.
By Mort Rosenblum
Comments -
1. A half millenium ago, a canoe full of Indians rowed out to an ungainly floating house anchored at Guanaja, a palm-flecked island off thre Honduran coast. Christopher Columbus had stopped by on the way home from his fourth and last trip to America, still hopeful he might find useful riches beyond an expanse of alien real estate. The Indians offered what he took to be a handful of shriveled almonds. He was mystified when a few dropped to the bottom of their canoe, his son reported later, and "they scrambled for them as though they were eyes that had fallen out of their headfs." But Columbus's Mayan was no better than the natives' Spanish. He returned to Spain empty handed.
2. Beyond industrial candymakers with brands we all recognize, chocolate comes in two flavors. There are those who make chocolate from beans, from the Swiss-based behemoth Barry Callebaut to such specialists as Valrhona. And there are artisansknown as fondeurs - the word means "melters" - who turn this base chocolate into high art.
3. Spain dominated the early cacao trade. As demand increased for chocolate in Europe, kings in Madrid kept close watch on their lucrative crop. After a century, though, their monopoly was threatened. Portuguese colonizers grew cacao in Brazil, and Dutch sailors also brought trees to Southeast Asia.
4. Chocolate, coffee, and tea all captivated Europe at about the same time, and each made its impact. Coffee, the cheapest, was a man's drink, taken in clublike public houses along with another exotic import, tobacco. Tea was twice as expensive as coffee, with more genteel following among both males and females. But, after all, it was only hot water and wet leaves. Chocolate, at double the price of tea, was the noble newcomer.
5. In 1875, after eight years of trying, the Swiss inventor Daniel Peter worked out a way to combine milk with chocolate. He was helped by Henri Nestle, whose dabbling in dairy science evolved into the largest food empire on earth. No 0ne had been able to mix fat in chocolate with water in milk. Nestle condensed milk, eliminating the water.
Questions -
1. Since Columbus' men loved the chocolate so much, why didn't they try to find out what it was or try to get some to bring back with them?
2. What made chocolate such a big deal throughout Europe?
3. What made Nestle think that adding milk to chocolate would make it taste better?
4. Why is chocolate compared to coffee and tea?
Vocabulary -
1. artisans - A skilled manual worker; a craftsperson.
2. alchemy - a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
3. lucrative - profitable; moneymaking; remunerative: a lucrative business.
Literary Terms -
1. Setting - most of Europe and the United States.
2.Exposition - Europeans fight to gain control of the chocolate market.
Outline -
Christopher Columbus is offerred chocolate by the Indians while on his last trip home from America. Then chocolate made its way throughout Europe and America where it was transformed in many ways to become a very high commodity. Most countries couldn't keep up with the demand the people had for chocolate.
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