Chocolate During The 1900's

During the 1900’s, B.C. that is, men in the Mokaya tribe of Central-Southern modern day Mexico found a jungle tree, the cacao tree, or as we know it, the cocoa tree. Their findings would be the start of a long usage of this extraordinary cacao bean for medicine, liquor and party drinks, and of course, chocolate. As the fifth most eaten food in the modern world, chocolate is very high in demand, especially in Switzerland, home of both the Nestle and Lindt chocolate companies, and in this case, chocolate actually does grow on trees. The Mokaya people of Mexico, being the first to find chocolate beans, didn’t have the technology to experiment with it, so they began using it as a medicine, though it didn’t quite work. Later groups in the 13th century, such as the Mayan and Aztec priests, would mix

30 years later Joseph Fry, another Dutchman, added the fat back after solidification to make the chocolate pieces moldable, and Rodolphe Lindt invented the conching machine in 1879, which can smooth chocolate into a bar or cylindrical piece. Englishman John Cadbury’s company was already making these bars, though not formed, in 1868, and his was the first to do boxed chocolates in little squares. 1893 was the year that Milton Hershey founded his chocolate company, but his would be the first to coat caramel in chocolate, which became an almost instantaneous favorite in the United States of America. During the first World War chocolate was sent to the soldiers from the English town of York as a morale-boosting gift and 2 years before the second World War Hershey’s chocolate was put into every D ration of the United States Armed Forces. Between 1940 and 1945 almost 3 billion units of this new chocolate were shipped to Allied soldiers