Chocolate!!!

In case you needed another reason to save the rain forest, here’s something that may pique your interest: chocolate. The cacao plant is incredibly sensitive to climate and the rain forest is one of the few places it flourishes.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a guilt trip. It is only one of the many things I learned while I drooled over the Chocolate exhibit at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of History. A mix of information about chocolate conservation and the history of the decadent treat drew a large crowd on Sunday.

Beautiful illustrations of the origins of the cacao (ka- kaow) plant and its early place in society lined the entrance. Each room thereafter took a step forward in time, showing the evolution of the value and purpose of chocolate. Interactive displays explained the use of the cacao beans as money and encouraged children to plan dinner based on the price of each ingredient they’d need. Other rooms contained global chocolate artifacts such as Spanish chocolate-stirring sticks (molinillo) and chocolate serving pots from Europe.

The weirdest thing I learned was that early chocolate-lovers went to “chocolate houses” the way we hang out in coffee shops today. I thought Starbucks was expensive but going to the chocolate house was only afforded by the wealthy and *dramatic pause* usually only men were permitted. Our “delicate constitution” or general "inferiority" probably had something to do with it. If women weren’t allowed in, when and, more importantly, how did it become such a vital part of our lives? I know, maybe, one female who doesn’t feel seduced by chocolate. It must be a repressed thing. Perhaps if they’d just given up the goods back then, we wouldn’t be so crazy today.

Of course, after you’ve wandered your way out of the exhibit, you are obligated to go to the gift shop (which you can smell when you walk by) to check out their purchasable exhibit of chocolate paraphernalia from around the world. I picked up chocolate-covered wine grapes and you’d better believe I will be tasting wine with them. ;)

Visit the Chocolate Exhibit at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of History in Norman, OK Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or Sunday 1 to 5 p.m until the exhibit leaves September 12th. Students get in free and adults are just $5.