July 9, Henry Ford, chocolate

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The Henry Ford museum has a special exhibit on chocolate.

I don't know why they decided to keep the light so low. To help us imagine a tropical rainforest environment, perhaps? It wasn't because they wanted to take good care of the artifacts, as all of the Aztec chocolate-preparation items were replicas......... I thought it was harder to see, in the exhibit, than strictly desirable.

The exhibit began with the trees, and a discussion of how they depend on the whole ecosystem to thrive. (Way too dark for pics in that section.) The next part described the way the cocoa was used by the Aztecs. (Didn't care about taking pics of shiny new repros.)

This is something I thought was interesting, from the Aztec section. Not only what these items cost in relation to cocoa beans, but in relation to each other...... (As always, click on a pic to see a bigger version.)





Moving on to the section on European use of cocoa (which had more light).

Thinking of my traveling daughter and the excellent hot chocolate she enjoyed in Paris. I love the shape.





Like the reflections.





There was discussion of the fact that the growing European demand for chocolate drove a corresponding growth in the demand for sugar, which drove continued expansion of enslavement of people........

At least the mill girls had a choice. Or more choice than the slaves had, anyway......



Yikes.

Wondering how different it is nowadays, for the people producing sugar......





The last part of the exhibit touched on modern production/sale of chocolate.

I liked this display of molds for chocolate candy.





An old Whitman's sampler box.





A newer repro of the above, owned by moi, used as a knitting box.





A place for the tourists to rest their weary feet and backs and necks. You could sit on a bonbon, and watch video displayed in an enormous candy box. Someone had fun making this stuff......





On the way out of the exhibit, I spotted these. I enjoyed my first Moon Pah in Tennessee in January.

I love the canister. The design of the moon, the fact that the top is a Moon Pah.....

Susie, can you hear me thinking about you?





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