Chocolate

A Short History of Chocolate in America - Don Seltzer
Chocolate as a Vegetable - Iain Rowan
Where to Find Chocolate On the Internet
Bob Jernigan's Extreme Chocolate
             Ginger Johnson's Variation on Extreme Chocolate
Richard's Truffles
Homemade Chocolate Pudding - Lois
Mars Bars
             Deep Fried Mars Bars - Jane Buchmann-Phillips
             Mars Bars Pancakes - Jane Skinner
             Deep Fried Mars Bars from Wikipedia (with picture)
Nutella in the Washington Post - Lois

A Short History of Chocolate in America - Don Seltzer
The first chocolate factory in the American colonies was in Dorchester, MA, and financed by Dr. James Baker. Baker's Chocolate was used for beverages, such as Stephen's and Jack's first drink together. It wasn't until the late 1800's that chocolate begins appearing in American recipes for cookies. By this time, a Dutchman, CJ Houten, had developed a refining method to produce sweetened chocolate (German chocolate), and Henri Nestle had developed milk chocolate.
The 1896 Fannie Farmer cookbook had four recipes for chocolate cookies, one of which was the precursor of the Oreo cookie. Another, the German Chocolate Cookies might be considered to be the first chocolate chip cookie. But when Ruth Wakefield made her landmark discovery in the 1930's, she was experimenting with a recipe from Amelia Simmons' 1796 cookbook, the first American cookbook. To the recipe for Butter Drop Do cookies, she added Nestle's semisweet chocolate bar, cut into chunks so big that they would not melt in the baking. And the rest is history.

Chocolate as a Vegetable - Iain Rowan
Cocoa = a bean
A bean = a vegetable
A vegetable = very healthy and desirable
Therefore by cold implacable steely logic, chocolate=health food.

Where to Find Chocolate On the Internet
Welcome to Ghirardelli!
Chocolate Gifts from Godiva
Hershey's Kitchens: A sweet collection of chocolate and dessert recipes for baking
Belgian Chocolate, French Chocolate, Organic Chocolate, Italian Chocolate, German Chocolate from Chocosphere
CHOCOLOVE Premium Belgian Chocolate

Bob Jernigan's Extreme Chocolate
For each person:
1 one-ounce square of unsweetened baker's chocolate (100% chocolate)
1 ounce butter
1 teaspoon sugar
Melt and mix together over low heat.
From here on it's up to you, add any or all of the following:
rum
apricot brandy
marmalade
dash of cinnamon
vanilla
cognac
heavy cream
more sugar
more chocolate
nothing
creme de menthe
Grand Marnier
raspberries
marmite
Serve:
on ladyfingers (not the Indian variety)
on biscuits
on ice cream
on your fingers
on your lover
on fruit (strawberries, pears, etc)
on Mondays, Tuesdays, etc.
Or, make crepes. Add gobs of marmalade and raspberry jam to the chocolate and ladle liberally over the crepes. Any time, any day. Remember to lick the pot.
Something I keep on hand in my freezer is a cylindrical cheese grater (you twist it like a pepper mill) with a square of Hershey's semi-sweet baking chocolate in it. Useful for dressing up many things: eggs, pancakes, glass of rum...

Ginger Johnson's Variation on Extreme Chocolate
Frangelico's also lovely.
Finely ground filberts (hazelnuts) or walnuts - beautiful texture.
When the melted mixture is let cool to the consistency of modeling clay, form it into little balls and roll in powdered baking chocolate.
Et voilá - chocolate truffles.

Richard's Truffles
1 cup whipping cream
16 ounces pure dark chocolate
4 tablespoons butter
1 to 2 tablespoons liqueur or drops-to-1/4 teaspoon flavored oil
2 pounds confectionery coating or
plain cocoa powder, flavored cocoa powder (such as amaretto, hazelnut, etc.), chocolate fondettes, coconut, or whatever inspiration comes to mind.
In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the cream until it simmers along the edges. Add the chocolate and butter and stir until both are melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool briefly. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the flavoring or liqueur and stir to blend. Pour mixture into an ungreased baking pan and chill it in the refrigerator until quite firm. Use a spoon or melon baller to scoop the mixture, and roll the cold, firm mixture into 1-inch balls. Use a light quick touch when you handle them. Refrigerate the balls, uncovered, on a cookie sheet until they are hard. It will not take more than one or two hours. The balls are now ready to dip in melted confectionery coating, or to roll in cocoa powder, chocolate fondettes, coconut, etc.
NOTE: Truffles may crack initially when the cold centers are dipped into the warm confectionery coating. Allow the dipped truffles to sit at room temperature until the temperature of the centers has stabilized (about two hours), then dip them again. They should show no cracking after the second dipping.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding - Lois
I have reproduced that My-T-Fine kind of chocolate pudding that came in a box, but less sweet.
Chocolate Pudding Recipe (Basic)
Sift or strain into bowl, and mix:
5 T cocoa
3 T cornstarch
2 T brown sugar, packed
Stir in two cups of milk, mix well
Heat gently, stirring, till pudding thickens, sticks to spoon. Don't overcook. Add 1 tsp vanilla.
Pour into cups and cool.
(Or......You can use 2 T cornstarch,and add an egg yolk to the milk.)

Mars Bars
Deep Fried Mars Bars - Jane Buchmann-Phillips
Recipe from Scottish Fish and Chip Stands
1 cup sifted flour 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup cold water 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 4 Mars or other caramel covered candy bars Shortening or oil for frying
Mix flour, salt, and water until smooth, cover, and let stand at room temperature 20 to 30 minutes. Stir baking powder into batter. Place shortening or oil in a deep fat fryer, insert thermometer, and begin heating over high heat. Dip candy bars into batter, allowing excess to drain off. Fry in 375 degree fat until golden and crisp. Drain on paper toweling.

Mars Bars Pancakes - Jane Skinner
A restaurant called "Hobb's Pavilion" in Cambridge serves meals based entirely around pancakes. One of their puddings involves pancakes, three melted Mars Bars and lots of whipped cream.

Nutella in the Washington Post - Lois
The Washington Post did a story on Nuttella just today:
Foraging
Nutella: Be Still My Heart
By Candy Sagon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 9, 2002; Page F07
The rich, buttery flavor of hazelnuts floods your mouth first. Almost immediately you become aware of the texture -- so soft and creamy and clinging to your tongue as you press it against the roof of your mouth. Then comes the sugar like a tsunami of sweetness that shoots up through the roots of your teeth straight to the top of your head, and then, when your eyelids are fluttering with pleasure and your knees are weak, the gentle caress of chocolate leaves a last lingering touch.
Is it any wonder that people are passionate about Nutella?
Nutella, for those bereft unfortunates who have never tried it, is an irresistible combination of cocoa and roasted hazelnuts with the spreading consistency of a thick, French buttercream frosting. I learned about it many years ago from a girlfriend in Texas. Whenever she had another fight with the boyfriend du jour, or just a day when our mutual boss was being more of a jerk than normal, she'd plop herself down on the couch with her jar of Nutella and a spoon and salve her emotional wounds. Much better than a pint of ice cream, she assured me.
I had to search for it in the supermarket, but when I finally got my own jar, I felt part of a secret society. I also discovered that you didn't have to be pouting on the couch to enjoy it. A layer of Nutella could do for a piece of plain pound cake what diamond earrings do for a plain black dress. And thinning Nutella with a little warm cream and drizzling it over sauteed bananas would produce those three crucial words: Oh. My. God.
Not surprisingly, it was the Italians who invented this food of the goddesses.
Italian pastrymaker Pietro Ferrero got the inspiration in the 1940s. Chocolate was being severely rationed because of the war and Ferrero, understandably, was worried. What is life without chocolate? Too horrible to contemplate, obviously. So the founder of the family-owned Ferrero Co. mixed cocoa with toasted hazelnuts, cocoa butter and vegetable oils to make an economical chocolate treat he called pasta gianduja, or hazelnut paste. It was brick-shaped, wrapped in foil and ready to be sliced. Chocolate-deprived Italians ate it up. Literally. Ferrero had to work with local farmers to increase their hazelnut crop to keep up with demand.
In 1949, the Ferrero Co. introduced a soft, spreadable version called supercrema gianduja. When the company decided to market the creamy spread to other European countries in 1964, the name was changed to Nutella. Today it's as popular there as peanut butter is here. The French love Nutella as a filling in crepes, and French and Italian kids eat it on bread for an after-school snack. In Germany, it's a popular breakfast spread.
When Nutella finally made it to this country in 1983, New York got it first, the lucky dogs. It took more than a decade for it to slowly spread (pun intended) to the rest of the country. Today, you can find Nutella in most supermarkets, but you have to look hard. It's usually bashfully hanging out with the jams and jellies; sometimes it has to keep company with those brash, unsophisticated jars of peanut butter. Occasionally, it's banished to some lonely imported foods shelf along with odd sauces and strange pickled things.
Sales have increased recently, thanks to an endorsement campaign by L.A. Lakers guard Kobe Bryant. Bryant, who spent most of his childhood in Italy eating Nutella, approached the company about promoting his favorite snack spread. His face and the slogan, "Try Kobe's Favorite!" now appears on the 13-ounce jars. The company hopes the publicity will help broaden Nutella's appeal to kids.
Kids will like it, no doubt, but when it comes to unabashedly fervent loyalty, it's more likely to be their moms. Women are the ones writing emotional mash notes to the makers of Nutella, describing their devotion in especially, shall we say, loving terms. Christopher Treston, associate brand manager for Ferrero USA in Somerset, N.J., just laughs when asked about a certain description of Nutella as "[romantic ecstasy] in a jar." While he's careful to say that he hasn't directly heard any of those descriptions, he admits, "I am aware of their existence." Let's just put it this way, he adds, "men don't usually use those metaphors."
Men or women Nutella groupies, or recent converts, can call 800-NUTELLA (800-688-3552) or check out the www.nutellausa.com Web site for recipe ideas. The Web also has dozens of Nutella worship pages as well, with recipes and lists of ways to enjoy the spread.
Or you could just get a spoon.