Dear Speech Repository Community,
For many people chocolate is the last word in enjoyment and luxury. It’s simply the most pleasurable sensory experience in food. That is why this wonderful food deserves its own day, World Chocolate Day!
Chocolate as we know it today has only existed for a short time. For thousands of years, it was only a drink, a fizzy mixture typically flavoured with spices or chili. Chocolate derives from the seedpods of the cacao tree, which evolved in equatorial South America. The Mesoamerican peoples first started cultivating it 3,000 years ago. Aztecs even used cacao seeds as a form of currency. Chocolate arrived in Europe during the 1500s, likely brought by both Spanish monks and conquistadors who had travelled to the Americas.
We can all agree that Belgium is the first country that springs to mind when we talk about chocolate. The famous Belgian pralines were actually invented by the Swiss migrant Jean Neuhaus II in 1912. He was the first to engineer a way of making chocolate shells filled with deliciously flavoured creams. These confections became known worldwide as pralines.
Belgium also owns the world’s biggest chocolate factory located in the village of Wieze in East Flanders. The factory produces around 270,000 tonnes of chocolate every year. Moreover, Brussels Airport is the world’s biggest chocolate seller, selling over 800 tonnes of chocolate a year.
If you wish to find out more about the growing of cocoa, we suggest you watch the following speeches: (FR) FR - Le chocolat et le cacao | Speech Repository (europa.eu), (EN) Cocoa in Ghana | Speech Repository (europa.eu) and (FR) La production du cacao | Speech Repository (europa.eu).
Since the chocolate production industry has its dark sides as well, you might be interested in finding out more by listening to the following speeches: (EN) Environmental impact of chocolate | Speech Repository (europa.eu), (NL) Chocolade en kinderarbeid | Speech Repository (europa.eu).
We also encourage you to check out the following speeches on chocolate in general:
(RO) Ciocolata | Speech Repository (europa.eu)
(CZ) Čokoláda a zásady degustace | Speech Repository (europa.eu)
(DE) Nobelpreise und Schokolade | Speech Repository (europa.eu)
Happy (and tasty) practising!