From Bitter Cocoa Bean To Glorious Chocolate

I had to research my favorite heavenly PMS-thwarting superfood, that of chocolate.  I can’t remember a time when chocolate wasn’t my favorite sweet treat on the planet, and I’ve never taken the time to research exactly how the stuff comes to be.  The process was eye-openingly grueling, all that had to be done just so I could stuff my face with the concoction of glory and goodness was more than I had ever imagined.

I knew that chocolate came from the cocoa bean, but I did not know that the cocoa bean trees only grow in specific countries, a narrow belt around the equator in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.  The cocoa bean prefers the tropical heat of the equator over the frigid ice of the poles.  Once the cocoa pod (each pod contains 40 to 50 cocoa beans) is fully grown, they are picked, after which they peel the pod and let the beans dry out for 6 or 7 days.  

Cocoa pods (https://www.infusionchocolates.com/aboutchocolate.php)

When this is accomplished, they are sorted, packaged, and shipped to chocolate-producing factories all over the world.  At the chocolate factories, the beans are cleaned, dried, and the shells removed, revealing a cocoa nib.   These nibs are roasted and then ground into a fine liquid, cocoa liquor.   Ingredients such as milk, vanilla, etc., can be added to the liquor, which is then rolled into a dough and ground into a powder.   The powder is put into a machine called a conch which plows the chocolate powder around, eventually giving it it’s velvety smoothness.  After it’s been tempered and cooled, it’s read to be molded and made into the chocolate concoctions that we are so used to.

That’s a long process just so I can spend 2 minutes eating a candy bar.  I have learned that I should never take for granted the food that we are provided with, whether it be the healthy stuff that keeps us alive and moving or the indulgent, once-in-a-while stuff like chocolate.  No matter what it is, someone worked hard to bring it to my plate.  

Works Cited

"DB Infusion Chocolates." Chocolate's Journey from Bean to Bar; Chocolate History, Health Facts and How to Taste Chocolate. DB Infusion Chocolates, 2015. Web. 27 May 2015.  

Family Farms and Climate...

It was interesting doing research for this project as I wasn't aware of the ins and outs of farming within my family.  On both my mother and father's sides there were quite a few farmers.  My grandpa and grandma on my mom's side had a self-sufficient farm in Victor, Idaho from about the late 1930s to the mid-1960s.  My grandpa on my dad's side, as well as my aunt and uncle had farms in Driggs, Idaho from the 1930s up through 2010, when my uncle finally retired, wherein they grew and sold different crops to co-ops.  The genealogy going further back is rich with farming family members.

My grandparents on my mom's side planted and harvested acres and acres of hay, mostly to feed their livestock; cows, horses, pigs, chickens, etc.  The farm was for their own family's use.  They drank the milk from their cows, ate the eggs from their chickens, and butchered pigs, cows, and chickens for the meat.  As such, my grandpa could not support his family of 6 children on the farm alone, so had to work as a hired hand, and also other jobs during the long winter months in Teton Valley, Idaho.  Farming the hay in such an unstable climate with such a short growing season was rife with trials.  Grandpa sometimes could only get one or two hay harvests a season as opposed to 3 or 4+ in a much mellower climate.  Grandma had to work outside the home to support her children as well, even amidst a time where many wives were homemakers.  Though, in the early 1940s with World War II in full force, many women were forced to work as the men were off to war.  My grandparents quit farming in 1964 and moved to Rexburg, Idaho where they both got jobs at the college there.  Farm life was too difficult to support their children on and they wanted more opportunities for them in a bigger city as well.  

My dad moved in with my uncle and aunt when his father passed away when he was only 10, so grew up helping with the farm work.  They grew potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, hay, and barley and sold the harvests to co-ops.  While they never had issue selling their goods, they did have issue growing it in the Teton Valley climate.  Weather was unpredictable.  Sometimes frost would come and take out a whole crop during June or an infestation of insects would take a whole field.  Income varied widely, and sometimes some of the 10 children had to get jobs to help support the family in other ways.  In 2010, instead of passing on the farm to one of his children, my uncle retired and sold off his acres of land for a good profit.  It was getting increasingly harder to sell crops from a family-owned farm over the big corporate farms popping up all over, and he got considerable more money selling the land for building of houses and stores.

All in all, farm life in my family wasn't an easy living.  It was a high stress profession wherein my relatives were at the mercy of the weather in order to keep their families fed.  I'm grateful for the knowledge of my past, and the fact that my relations were never afraid of hard work.  They passed that legacy on to many generations to come.  

Works Cited:

 Wade, Dessa. "Family Farming." Telephone interview. 20 May 2015.

Wade, Rex. "Family Farming." Telephone interview. 20 May 2015.