The History of Chocolate Essay Example for Free

The History of Chocolate Essay The first recorded evidence of chocolate as a food product goes back to Pre-Columbian Mexico. The Mayans and Aztecs were known to make a drink called Xocoatll from the beans of the cocoa tree. In 1528, the conquering Spaniards returned to Spain with chocolate still consumed as a beverage. A similar chocolate drink was brought to a royal wedding in France in 1615, and England welcomed chocolate in 1662. To this point chocolate as we spell it today, had been spelled variously as chocalatall, jocolatte, jacolatte, and chockelet. 11 In 1847, Fry Sons in England introduced the first eating chocolate, but did not attract much attention due to its bitter taste. In 1874, Daniel Peter, a famed Swiss chocolateer, experimented with various mixtures in an effort to balance chocolates rough flavor, and eventually stumbled upon that abundant product milk. This changed everything and chocolates acceptance after that was quick and enthusiastic. GROWING COCOA BEANS Cocoa beans are usually grown on small plantations in suitable land areas 20 degrees north or south of the Equator. One mature cocoa tree can be expected to yield about five pounds of chocolate per year. These are planted in the shade of larger trees such as bananas or mangos, about 1000 trees per hectare (2,471 acres). Cocoa trees take five to eight years to mature. After harvesting from the trees, the pods (which contain the cocoa beans) are split open, beans removed, and the beans are put on trays covered with burlap for about a week until they brown. Then they are sun dried until the moisture content is below 7%. This normally takes another three days. After cleaning, the beans are weighed, selected and blended before roasting at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. Then shells are removed leaving the nib. Nibs are crushed to create a chocolate mass. This is the base raw material from which all chocolate products are made. KINDS OF CHOCOLATE Milk Chocolate This consists of at least 10% chocolate liquor (raw chocolate pressed from carob nibs) and 12% milk solids combined with sugar, cocoa butter (fat from nibs), and vanilla. Sweet and Semi-Sweet Chocolate Are made from 15-35% chocolate liquor, plus sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla. Imprecision of the two terms causes them to commonly be called dark or plain chocolate. Dark chocolate has a large following among dessert makers, and for this reason is referred to as baking chocolate. Bittersweet and Bitter Chocolate Bittersweet usually contains 50% chocolate liguor and has a distinct bite to the taste. Bitter or unsweetened chocolate liquor also is used in baking and is also referred to as bakers chocolate. Creams and Variations Bite sized and chocolate covered. They are filled with caramels, nuts, creams, jellies, and so forth. White Chocolate Is not really chocolate as it contains no chocolate liquor, Carob This is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. It is used by some as a substitute for chocolate because it can be combined with vegetable fat and sugar, and made to approximately the color and consistency of chocolate.

Falling Behind by Robert Frank Essay -- Falling Behind, Robert Frank

Robert H. Frank’s book Falling Behind is a short, lucid, and compelling account of what is going on with the middle class†(Alexander Kemestrios Ben). That is what one reviewer on Amazon.com commented about Frank’s book Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. In order to engage readers and support their ideas, most argumentative nonfiction books use statistics, logical reasoning, personal anecdotes, and real-life examples. While all of these strategies such as should make an interesting and compelling argument, the question is not of how interesting the book is, but rather is it or is it not a quality argumentative nonfiction book? Before answering that question, we must first consider what makes a quality argumentative nonfiction book. A quality argumentative nonfiction book should engage readers with entertaining and unique ideas and also have well-explained and simplified ideas that are easy for the audience to understand. By these standard s, Falling Behind is partially a quality argumentative nonfiction book because, although it fully meets the criterion of having entertaining and unique ideas, it only partially meets the criterion of having well-explained and simplified ideas. In addition to being â€Å"the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management,† Robert H. Frank is also â€Å"the co-director of the Paduano Seminar in business ethics at NYU’s Stern School of Business†(â€Å"Faculty and Research†). He earned a â€Å"B.S. in mathematics from Georgia Tech† and â€Å"an M.A. in statistics and a Ph.D. in economics† from the University of California at Berkeley (â€Å"Faculty and Research†). Frank has written and cowritten many books, as well as various... ...zon.com. Amazon, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. â€Å"Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class.† Goodreads. Goodreads, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. Finn, Daniel. "Smart for One, Dumb for All." Commonweal 135.5 (2008): 22+. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014 Frank, Robert H. Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. Print. Gross, Daniel. "Thy Neighbor’s Stash." NYTimes.com. Ed. Andrew Rosenthal. New York Times, 5 Aug. 2007. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. â€Å"Herpangina† MedlinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2014 "Robert H. Frank." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. Whaley, Mary. "Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class." Booklist 1 July 2007: 15. EBSCO Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.

Factors Affecting Climate

Factors Affecting Climate There are many different factors that affect climate around the world. The most important factors are:- †¢Distance From The Sea †¢Ocean Currents †¢Direction of Prevailing Winds †¢Relief †¢Proximity To The Equator †¢The El Nino Phenomenon †¢Recently, it has been accepted that human activity is also affecting climate. Distance From The Sea (Continentality) The sea affects the climate of a place. Coastal areas are cooler and wetter than inland areas. Clouds form when warm air from inland areas meets cool air from the sea. The centre of continents are subject to a large range of temperatures.In the summer, temperatures can bevery hot and dry as moisture from the sea evaporates before it reaches the centre of the continent. Ocean Currents The Ocean Currents of the World http://www. itl. net cean currents can increase or reduce temperatures. The diagram to the left shows the ocean currents of the world. The main ocean current tha t affects the UK is the Gulf Stream. Can you see where the gulf stream is? The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current in the North Atlantic flowing from the Gulf of Mexico, northeast along the U. S coast, and from there to the British Isles.The Gulf of Mexico has higher air temperatures than Britain as it's closer to the equator. This means that the air coming from the Gulf of Mexico to Britain is also warm. However, the air is also quite moist as it travels over the Atlantic ocean. This is one reason why Britain often receives wet weather. The Gulf Stream keeps the west coast of Europe free from ice in the winter and, in the summer warmer than other places of a similar latitude. The chart below was the first chart drawn of the Gulf Stream. It was drawn by Benjamin Franklin in 1770.The Gulf Stream – As Drawn By Benjamin Franklin http://www. cnmoc. navy. mil. educate Direction of Prevailing Winds Winds that blow from the sea often bring rain to the coast and dry weather to inland areas. Winds that blow to Britain from warm inland areas such as Africa will be warm and dry. Winds that blow to Britain from inland areas such as the Netherlands will be cold and dry in winter. Britains prevailing winds come from a south westerly direction over the Atlantic. The winds are cool in the summer and mild in the winter. Relief Climate can be affected by mountains.Mountains receive more rainfall than low lying areas because the temperature on top of mountains is lower than the temperature at sea level. That is why you often see snow on the top of mountains all year round. The higher the place is above sea level the colder it will be. This happens because as altitude increases, air becomes thinner and is less able to absorb and retain heat. Proximity To The Equator The proximity to the equator affects the climate of a place. The equator receives the more sunlight than anywhere else on earth. This is due to its position in relation to the sun (see right).The diagram shows that the equator is hotter because the sun has less area to heat. It is cooler at the north and south poles as the sun has more area to heat up. It is cooler as the heat is spread over a wider area. The Earth's Position in Relation to the Sun http://www. itl. net El Nino El Nino, which affects wind and rainfall patterns, has been blamed for droughts and floods in countries around the Pacific Rim. El Nino refers to the irregular warming of surface water in the Pacific. The warmer water pumps energy and moisture into the atmosphere, altering global wind and rainfall patterns.The phenomenon has caused tornadoes in Florida, smog in Indonesia, and forest fires in Brazil (see below) Devastation Caused by a El Nino-generated tornado in Florida http://news. bbc. co. uk Smog In Indonesia http://news. bbc. co. uk El Nino Causes Forest Fires in Brazil http://news. bbc. co. uk Human Influence The factors above affect the climate naturally. However, we cannot forget the influence of humans on ou r climate. We have been affecting the climate since we appeared on this earth millions of years ago. In those times, the affect on the climate was small.Trees were cut down to provide wood for fires. Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. A reduction in trees will therefore have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Industrial Revolution, starting at the end of the 19th Century, has had a huge effect on climate. The invention of the motor engine and the increased burning of fossil fuels have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The number of trees being cut down has also increased, meaning that the extra carbon dioxide produced cannot be changed into oxygen.

By the end of the eighteenth century, thought gradually...

By the end of the eighteenth century, thought gradually moved towards a new trend called Romanticism. If the Age of Enlightenment was a period of reasoning, rational thinking and a study of the material world where natural laws were realized then Romanticism is its opposite. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental (Forsyth, Romanticism). It began in Germany and England in the eighteenth century and by the late 1820s swept through Europe and then swiftly made its way to the Western world. The romantics overthrew the philosophical ways of thinking during the Enlightenment, they felt that reason and rationality†¦show more content†¦In the end it would be fair to say that love was a sort of religion for the romantics as love was the driving force for much of how they felt, what they done and how they saw the world around them. Themes of Romanticism: Nature, Individualism, and Imagination Before the Romantic period people sought meaning in their lives by believing in a God who created a world so perfect it could operate without his constant presence though humans and nature were in conflict due to strict rules. Romantics found tremendous inspiration in all of nature, they preferred scenery that can be found in the landscapes of the countryside instead of the cities. One of the most common beliefs in Romanticism, where God is concerned is that He consists of everything in the universe including people. This view called pantheism holds that nothing is separate, and all one has to do to find God is to look toward nature, others and themselves—because all that exists is only manifestations of God (Molloy). During the romantic period God was not at the center of existence, they believed the body and mind of each person was in control of itself. The Romantics were roughly responsible for people seeing themselves as individuals, they hated control and the very idea of not thinking for oneself, thus from those beliefs sprang up a term called Individualism. Until the Romantic era, logic resolved that God put each person on earth for aShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Ideas of Hell and Purgatory3168 Words   |  13 Pagesperspective, where the wicked were separated from the righteous, and thrown into a large burning trash dump called Gehenna (Graham). From the beginning, the church sought to get rid of this Old Testament idea which made the church less appealing. Hence, the once harsh idea of hell and purgatory has lightened with the times. 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