Colonial Chocolate

Since it's American Chocolate Week - let's talk about the history of American Chocolate!

Did you know MARS has a Historic Division?  It was established in 2006 with the goal of becoming the undisputed leader in chocolate history.  (You go, MARS!).  Their marketing company sent me a really cool box of their new American Heritage Chocolate.  It's made with only ingredients available during the 17th century.  Hmmmmm.........let's investigate.

Isn't this packaging fabulous?  A VERY cool wooden box:

A beautifully printed book and DVD were in the box.  MARS researched the ingredients and used them to re-create colonial chocolate.  The colonial chocolate making process is recreated in the video.

There were some samples - these are chocolate sticks:

This bag contained more chocolate sticks, but there's also hot chocolate mix in the line.

This contained a big chocolate block designed to grate, shave or melt and use on desserts:

I'm thinking maybe this would be terrific for Colonial Williamsburg or other museums.  Might be really cool for teachers to use with their students.  Definitely a niche product.  (You can check all this out for yourself at http://www.americanheritagechocolate.com/ - a very well done website.) 

But for the rest of us...um....it's just not that great.  I don't want to eat more of this - too dry.  It does have a strong chocolate taste, but I'd rather have just a regular old chocolate bar.  Or a handful of        M & Ms.  We've come a long way, baby!

But I love MARS for innovation and cool marketing!