The Bottom Line: Sweet facts about chocolate and fudge.
The Full Story:
- The American culinary folklore has it that fudge was invented in the United States more than 100 years ago. The exact origin is disputed, but most stories claim that the first batch of fudge resulted from a bungled ("fudged") batch of caramels made on February 14, 1886, hence the name "fudge."
- In 1896, the recipe for chocolate brownies, an American snack food staple, was introduced in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.
- What is chocolate made from? Cacao is a tree, native to South America, whose seeds are the source of cocoa and chocolate
- The French Leader Napoleon insisted that wine, from the Burgundy vineyard called Chambertin, as well as chocolate be available during military campaigns. Due to its precious nature, the distribution of chocolate was limited to himself and his senior military advisors
- The U.S. produces more chocolate than any other country but the Swiss consume the most, followed closely by the English.
- Americans eat an average of 22-pounds of candy each year, or approximately 2.8-BILLION pounds annually, split almost equally between candy and chocolate. That is far less than most Europeans consume.