This week, the tech blog Gizmodo is featuring tech items that have been mashed up with cuisine and food, and yesterday’s post was about the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain, located here in Las Vegas at the Bellagio Hotel.
I’ve never had a reason to even step inside the Bellagio, so I haven’t seen this in person, but the videos give you an idea of how large this thing really is.
Standing 27 feet tall, the machine, created by Chef Jean-Philippe Maury, circulates 2100 pounds or about 120 quarts of white, dark and milk chocolate per minute.
While fully functional, the fountain is …read more

Artisan chocolate maker Scharffen Berger will be making its first big screen appearance in the upcoming movie, Julie & Julia.

An early pivotal scene finds Julie (played by Amy Adams) standing outside a Scharffen Berger chocolate storefront. It’s in this instant that she makes the connection between cooking and pleasure, which inspires her to cook every recipe in Julia Childs’ (played by Meryl Streep) cookbook within one year and blog about it. (I found an interesting IMDB message board thread stating that Julia didn’t approve of Julie’s undertaking!)
Scharffen Berger chocolate was created in 1997 in San Francisco, California, and began …read more

Arguably one of those most popular comedy bits of all time, the 39th episode of “I Love Lucy” featured Lucy and Ethel working at a chocolate factory, wrapping chocolates as they came down a conveyor belt. The episode is technically titled “Job Switching” but is better known as “Candy Factory.”
It was filmed May 30, 1952 and entails Ricky and Fred thinking that housework is much easier than earning money. Lucy and Ethel feel the opposite so the boys try doing the housework while the girls attempt to hold down a job at a candy factory.
[info via Lucy Library]

The Consumerist had a great article yesterday on how to determine if M&M’s, Mars or Hershey candy is expired:
“For M&Ms and Mars candy, there’s usually a 10 digit code of numbers and letters, but you only need to worry about the first three. The first number is the last number in the year (8 means 2008, 7 means 2007, etc) and the next two numbers stand for the week of the year (so, a number like 804 would be the fourth week of 2008: February 2008).
“For Hershey’s candy, there’s a 2 character code for the month and year. The year …read more

Chocolate goes well with many holidays, and for good reason! But sometimes I wonder why it’s bigger for some holidays (Valentine’s and Easter) and not others (Fourth of July or Thanksgiving). Anyway, I dug up a little history to explain why chocolate and Easter go so well together:
“It was at about this time (early 1800’s) that the first chocolate Easter egg appeared in Germany and France and soon spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. The first chocolate eggs were solid soon followed by hollow eggs. Although making hollow eggs at that time was no mean feat, because the …read more

This was a fun article: “How much could you spend in one day on food?”

“I was thinking recently as I watched some of these ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ type shows, what would really be the ultimate in extravagant, unnecessary opulent indulgence? After some thought, (maybe because I was hungry) I put together the ‘The Most Expensive Days Worth of Food Possible.’“
You know there’s going to be some damn good chocolate in there, right?

This is called a Golden Opulence Sundae and is sold at Serendipity 3 (home of the famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate) in New York City for $1000. …read more

Not too long ago the very generous Jennifer (jenerous? Sorry, too much BB8) over at Offbeat Homes sent me a document about chocolate that she had created for a class. I gleaned a few tidbits and present you with bits and pieces of chocolate history:

- The botanical name for the cacao tree is “Theobroma Cacao” which means “the food of the Gods”. Cacao trees have also been discovered in Asia, Africa, and the South Pacific.
- Inside of the green pods are purple seeds surrounded by white cushiony pulp. Chocolate is made from the purple seeds, more commonly known as …read more

There are some things you just can’t imagine living life without. For some it may be their computer, or indoor plumbing, or their car. But for many of us, it is difficult to imagine life without chocolate chip cookies.
But there was a time before chocolate chip cookies were invented. Yep, I kid you not. And it wasn’t even all that long ago. Mankind existed for centuries without tasting even one smidgen of chocolate chip cookie.
It seems that sometime in the early 1930’s, a lady named Ruth Wakefield was baking regular chocolate cookies. Wakefield was the owner of the Toll House …read more

Centuries ago chocolate was nothing like what we know it as today. It was not a sweet concoction enjoyed by anybody, but rather a bitter drink used in many ceremonies.
Chocolate originated with the Mayan civilization in South America somewhere between 250 and 900 A.D. They would make a paste from roasted cacao seeds which they then mixed with water and spices. The result was a spicy, bitter drink. While most of their people did indulge in this drink on occasion, when it was later adopted by the Aztecs they reserved it for their rulers and priests. In fact, the Aztec …read more

I’m sure you all love these posts telling you about more ways you can waste time online…
Lindt, the Swiss chocolatier, has come up with the Gold Bunny Hunt Game. You can search through photos from four major US cities to find the bunny, then answer trivia questions about chocolate and about the cities themselves. Highest scores win prizes of chocolate, of course. Unfortunately, only US players are eligible for the prizes, but the game can be played by all. Be sure to register first so your score can be counted.
Like the chocolate, this is strangely addictive, and not to be …read more