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When you get a box of chocolates for Christmas, have you stopped to think that the world’s most loved confectionery was once worth the price of a person’s life?
According to Toshiko Kakimura, manager of the Shiroi Koibito Park in Hokkaido, which makes the famous“white lover” cookies of the same name, a piece of chocolate “could be used to exchange for a slave in the 18th century”.
She said chocolate originates from Mesoamerica, or Central America as it is known today, and dates from1900 BC.
It was not introduced to Europe until the 16th century, when Christopher Columbus encountered the cocoa bean.
“Before the 19th century, chocolate was a luxury good that could be worth a fortune” Kakimura said, pointing out that even later itwas exclusively enjoyed by royalty and social elites.