Christmas In July

Melting Chocolate
Originally uploaded by oreolla

It's July. I'm on vacation. You all know that!!! What you may not know is that I am behind in my reading. For Christmas I love to read a good "Christmas Mystery." The truth is I got two books this year and only got to read one of them. So, since we are on the road and I have time to read I decided to read the one I hadn't finished. So here is a partial review of my "Christmas in July" mystery.

It's called The Chocolate Snowman Murders by JoAnna Carl. (She is also the author of The Chocolate Jewel Case.) Though it's certainly not close to the season mentioned above, there is never a season or time of year when CHOCOLATE or a GOOD mystery is not appropriate.

I will not tease you with the plot...but I will tease you with the chocolate trivia!

Really Ancient Chocolate

Among the big anthropological news of the early 2000's was the report that scientist had proved use of chocolate by humankind began five hundred years earlier that previously thought.

An analysis of ancient pottery from Honduras found traced of chocolate at least three thousand years old. This is five hundred years earlier than any earlier evidence of the use of the heavenly substance.

A professor of anthropology at Cornell University, John Henderson, and his colleagues made chemical analyses of residue on bits of broken pottery dating from 1100 B.C., pottery found in the Ulua Valley of Northern Honduras. The scientists discovered theobroma, and alkaloid present only in cacao.

Scientists speculate that the vessels had been used to drink a fermented 'beer' made from the pulp that surrounds the cacao beans used to produce chocolate.

The pottery was of the type used for important ceremonies, the researchers said."
So there you have it.

Today have your chocolate and PARTY! Perhaps more trivia tomorrow!

~~~^j^~~~

Thanks be to God!

If you love a good mystery and chocolate Diane Mott Davidson has also written a book called Dying for Chocolate.

The lovely picture is by oreolla.