With Valentine’s day coming up, this promises to be a chocolaty weekend. I heart chocolate. But I won’t be blinded by my love… let’s look at the cold, hard, bitter chocolate facts.

Theobroma Cacao (more commonly called cocoa) is an evergreen tree native to Central America. They grow to 60 feet tall in the wild, and have 3 to 5 main branches that grow outward. The branches sprout thousands of small, white, scentless flowers. A small amount of flowers produce a berry which, over a period of six months, grows to a ripe pod about the length of your hand. One tree will produce only 30 of these pods per year.

Inside the pod is the cacao bean, the source of my tongue’s best friend. Through my affair with dark chocolate I’ve come to a greater understanding of how others enjoy wine. The process of turning cacao beans into chocolate requires similar care, from drying, through fermenting, to extract the richest flavour. Mind you, the majority of cacao beans get used for low-end candy bars where the milk and sugar overpower any such flavour… so they don’t worry about the details so much.

While the cacao tree originated in Mexico, now the majority of cacao is produced in Africa. My personal favourite chocolate bar features beans exclusively from Madagascar. Like most other things that come from the secluded island, the flavour of these beans is entirely unique. You have probably bought wine from specific regions of France, but you may not have considered the same principle applies for chocolate bars!

Going back to the origins, the Mayans and Aztec both produced a drink from the native cacao plants. For the Aztecs, it was a spicy, bitter chocolate drink reserved only for those of the highest status, drank from golden goblets that were tossed in the lake after one use. They called it xocoatl (pronounced shoco-latle).

The drink traveled back to Spain with Cortes, and once they added a bit if sugar to it, really caught on across Europe. The rest is history… but the above was history too.

• Source: Cocoa & Chocolate Facts – Yachana Gourmet

It wasn’t all that long ago that we learned tomatoes (along with peppers, cucumbers, and anything else with seeds) are really a fruit, however that is not true in a United States court of law. In 1883 the US Supreme Court passed a law that classified tomatoes as a vegetable.

The reason, of course, was taxes. An importer of produce refused to pay the usual tariff on vegetables arguing that tomatoes were not actually vegetables. That’s true, and the senate agreed in the botanical sense… but they made the law anyway.

That’s how the tomato can cause taxes, so how about death? Well when that law was passed, North American people would have only been eating the tomato for about 60 years prior. Before that, it was widely believed and assumed that the tomato was very poisonous.

The tomato was picked up by European explorers around 1500 from it’s native home in South America, and it was experimented with once they got it back home. So I don’t know where along the line this poison belief crept in, but in 1820 nobody would dare eat a tomato. Except one man.

The brave mythbuster was Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson, and one day he staged a public demonstration on the courthouse steps of Salem, New Jersey where he dared to eat a tomato. Obviously, the event had an anti-climactic ending and people started eating tomatoes fearlessly.

• Source: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_35.html
• Inspired by my friend Shawn who asked about the poison myth (which I had never heard of)

Ch-ch-ch-chia! The Chia Pet is deeply rooted in the popular culture of North America so much that it is part of the Smithsonian Institutions permanent collection. It started as an authentic bit of Mexican culture before becoming an “As Seen on TV” sensation.

It is a small animal figurine made of terra cotta pottery. You soak some chia seeds in water, and spread them over the grooved portion of the pottery where they stick long enough to take root and grow. The first official “Chia Pet” appeared on TV in 1982. It was the ram… still a best-seller.

The chia plant (salvia hispanica… a type of sage) itself has a long history and was treasured in the ancient Aztec culture. It was given as part of an annual tribute to the Aztec rulers. To this day the chia seeds are used in Mexico as a health supplement. They may be tiny (about 2 millimeters) but they are packed with goodness. Protein, dietary fibre, strong antioxidants, and the oil is a significant source of omega-3 fatty acids. Also gluten-free.

Australia was the top producer of chia crops in 2008. The herb can grow to 1 meter in height, which if left to grow wild on one of the Chia Pet Barack Obama heads, would just look… tacky!

99% of annual Chia Pet sales occur in December, as it makes the perfect gift for that special person you don’t really like a whole lot.

Bonus Fact: Joseph Enterprises Inc., the company that brings us the Chia Pet, has also brightened our lives with that modern marvel “The Clapper” for turning lamps on and off.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_hispanica

Koalas, one of those distinctive Australian animals, exclusively eats the leaves of the eucalyptus tree. It eats a lot of them. That tough, poisonous leaf provides the koala with most of their water, and all of the nutrients they need for the day, but just barely. The truth is their diet of choice, much like kids who eat nothing but plain hot dogs, leaves much to be desired as a well-rounded nutritional source.

Simply because the eucalyptus leaves do not provide many nutrients, the koala spends most of it’s day sleeping. Like 18 hours a day. That leaves it with just enough energy to wake up, eat another two and half pounds of junky leaves, before nodding off again.

Now, technically koalas don’t smell like cough drops. However koalas do smell like the eucalyptus trees that they spend their whole life in. It just so happens that eucalyptus oil has long been used as a herbal medicine, including use in cough drops as an anti-bacterial and phlegm loosener. (yum!) So really, cough drops smell like koalas.

Oh, and don’t go calling them koala bears. They are marsupials (young babies develop in mom’s pouch), and have nothing to do with bears. Well, both koalas and bears are fuzzy, oh so cuddly, and have giant long sharp claws that can rip your face off. So there’s that.

• Source: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/koala.html
• Inspired by the Life of Mammals documentary.

An interesting fact about spiders has recently surfaced… for the first time, they’ve found one that is a herbivore, primarily eating plants. Not only that, the Bagheera kiplingi spider (clearly named by a fan of the Jungle Book story), has chosen a particularly tricky plant to be eating. Any time it wants a snack it has to sneak past armed guards!

The acacia plant in southern Mexico and central America has no natural defenses against passing snackers. Many plants have evolved a strong bitter taste, or prickly things, but the acacias have sub-contracted their protection. Each plant is home to a colony of stinging ants that live and feed from the plant. In exchange for this protection, the acacia leaves excrete a little drop of nectar for ant food. A lovely symbiotic relationship, until this spider comes along.

Through extensive video research, they’ve observed how the Bagheera spider is getting in to nibble on the leaves of the acacia. It’s much like you’d expect to see in a movie. The spider, with excellent eyesight, watches for the ants on patrol, and plans his path to avoid them. Add in ninja-like agility and this spider’s daily lunch would put Jackie Chan to shame.

Another interesting wrinkle in the story of this spider is that they live in groups, which is not seen in any other spiders. The adult male spiders even take care of eggs and young, where pretty much across the board most other daddy spiders are the number one threat to it’s own kids. Generally, these vegetarian spiders share more in common with ants than they do with other spiders.

Perhaps it’s evolutionary proof that being a vegetarian does make you a nice guy. Maybe that crazy lady in California was on to something when she told me that “eating meat blocks your articles.”

• Source: http://www.physorg.com/news174568827.html

Pie is a topic near and dear to my heart. In my eyes (tummy) pumpkin pie ranks right up there along with homemade saskatoon berry pie as being among the best. Turns out it takes a special pumpkin to be transformed into the delicious triangular treat.

About 90% of the pumpkin pies found in North America start out in Illinois where they grow Libby’s select Dickinson pumpkins. That’s a special breed that has been specifically developed for cooking. While it’s related to the typical round, orange, jack-o-lantern pumpkins we normally think of, the Dickinson is packed with a smoother, sweeter, tastier pulp… and more of it.

So pretty much all the world’s pumpkin pie stock comes from one spot. Fortunately Nestle (the company that now owns the Libby’s brand) hasn’t revealed any evil pie-opoly domination plans, but this autumn there was a pumpkin pie shortage threatening dinner tables. Last year’s pumpkin harvest was low due to a cold snap, so this year’s canned pumpkin was in short supply. Fortunately, things are looking good now and the crisis should pass by Christmas. To be on the safe side, I’m stock-piling pie… in my belly.

Bonus fact: The largest pumpkin on record was grown in Pennsylvania and weighed in at 1131 pounds. (but it wasn’t of the tasty Dickinson variety) Speaking of tasty… the largest pumpkin pie ever was baked in 2006 in Ohio, and tipped the scales at 2020 pounds.

• Source: http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/libbys/trivia_answers.aspx
• News on shortage: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pumpkin10-2009oct10,0,3694102.story

It’s now officially chilly around here, so my curiosity turned towards the leaves. Specifically, how and why they change to such lovely colours. Turns out, they don’t really change to yellow and orange so much as let their true colours come through. (That’s your cue, Cyndi!)

The green in leaves is due to the presence of chlorophyll. That’s the chief ingredient for the process of photosynthesis, turning sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into glucose… yummy tree food. (also good on pancakes) If you ever mow a lawn in white shoes, you know that chlorophyll is a strong green pigment, and that’s what you’re seeing when you look at a green leaf.

As the days get shorter, the trees take the hint to begin hibernating for the winter. In shutting down photosynthesis food production, the green chlorophyll drains out of the leaves and the true colour of the leaf, be it yellow, brown, orange, or some mix of the above, can now be seen. (the colour is caused by carotenoids, much like those newfangled orange carrots)

Red leaves, however, are not a natural colour but the result of specific circumstances. If the autumn days tend to be sunny, but then the nights are particularly cold (but not freezing) then we will see more vibrant red leaves. The red is caused by anthocyanins, which only enters the leaves as an elite rescue force. In such weather conditions the glucose (food) gets stuck in the leaf, unable to completely drain into the tree, and the red anthocyanins are created to recover nutrients from the leaves before they fall off.

• Source: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/veg/trees/treestruecolor.htm