{"id":1026,"date":"2009-11-17T21:07:10","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T03:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2009-11-27T08:50:20","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T14:50:20","slug":"spicy-hot-cocoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=1026","title":{"rendered":"Spicy Hot Cocoa"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

Every year, my grandparents come over to America from the Philippines.\u00a0 Besides looking forward to seeing them of course, I look forward to my pasalubong<\/em> or present from back home.\u00a0 My favorite is the chocolate.\u00a0 They have about half a dozen cacao trees growing in the yard and they are always teeming with fruit.\u00a0 My grandmother processes the chocolate at home.\u00a0 It is quite tedious.\u00a0 The seeds have to be cleaned, fermented, dried, roasted, shelled, and turned into a paste, which would then be put into molds.\u00a0 I think it’s the best tasting chocolate in the world though I may be a little biased in my opinion.\u00a0 The chocolate scent is so potent that Keith got a headache while we were grinding up some for hot cocoa after dinner.<\/p>\n

\"groundchocolate\"<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The cacao seeds come in football-shaped seed pods that are about 6-8 inches long and 3-4 inches in diameter.\u00a0 When they are ripe the pods turn yellow-gold and\u00a0 some turn red and burnt orange in color.\u00a0 When we were little, my brother and I volunteered to pick the fruit and we used to suck on the pulpy and slimy seed pods to remove the flesh and we would spit them into a bilao<\/em> (a huge plate made from woven bamboo).\u00a0 Care for <\/em>a little saliva with your chocolate?<\/em> \u00a0<\/em>Because they were so slippery I ended up swallowing a bunch of seeds accidentally and I used to be so scared that cacao trees would grow in my belly!<\/p>\n

Here’s a great resource on the History of Chocolate<\/a> from the Field Museum website.<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spicy Hot Chocolate<\/strong><\/p>\n

RECIPE<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n