Chocolate and Valentine’s Day: how did they become synonymous with each other today?
Columbus, Cortes, and Cadbury are some of the familiar names instrumental in spreading the love for chocolate across the world
By Yun Suh-young
Korea is a country that obsessively celebrates Valentine’s Day, but ironically consumes very low amounts of chocolate per person annually.
According to data released by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) Monday, Koreans annually consume 607g of chocolate per person which works out to 8.7 chocolate bars weighing 70g each. This is a slight increase from 7.9 bars in 2011, yet far below the top consumer Switzerland with 9kg per person annually. The top 10 chocolate consumers are Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, England, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, the U.S. and France, according to Euromonitor’s 2015 statistics.
The fact that Europeans are the highest consumers of chocolate is an interesting fact to take note of, considering chocolate’s long history dating back to ancient Maya.
History of chocolate
Chocolate’s main ingredient cacao is known to have been first cultivated in the Mesoamerican region, notably in Mexico and the rest of Central and South America. The domestication of cacao trees is recorded to date back 3,000 years. The origin of cacao in the form of food dates back 1,500 years to ancient Mexico where the Olmecs began drinking cacao in the form of a watery beverage by grinding the cacao fruit into powder and adding water to it. They called this “xocolatl” or “cacahuatl” meaning cacao with water.