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2

1 © OxfOrd university press

This ungraded summary is for the teacher’s use only and should not be given to students.

ChocolateJanet Hardy-Gould

Introduction

particularly cheap milk chocolate – contains large

amounts of unhealthy sugar and fat.

Chapter 8 (types of chocolate) gives a summary

of the three basic types of chocolate – dark, milk, and

white. It goes on to describe some of the inventions

of famous chocolatiers, such as pralines and truffles.

Chapter 9 (special days and presents) explains

the importance of chocolate on birthdays and other

festivals. Different countries have different traditions;

for example, chocolate skulls are often given to

children on the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and parents

in the UK sometimes give chocolate money to their

children on Christmas Day.

Chapter 10 (Cooking with chocolate) describes

the origins of some famous cakes and biscuits made

with chocolate, including Sachertorte, Black Forest

gateau, éclairs, and chocolate chip cookies. It mentions

that, in Mexico for example, chocolate is also used in

savoury cooking. There is also a recipe for American

chocolate chip cookies.

Chapter 11 (Chocolate places to visit) is about

various visitor attractions related to chocolate. These

include museums of paintings and buildings made of

chocolate. China and Korea have very large chocolate

museums, and people can also visit factories like

Cadbury World in Birmingham. Perugia in Italy has a

nine-day chocolate festival every October.

Chapter 12 (Changing chocolate) finishes with a

summary of the development of chocolate from a

strong hand-made drink over a thousand years ago to

the vast range of chocolate products we now have.

New flavours are continually being developed, and

new markets (such as China and India) are being

explored. Chocolate is big business, and is likely to get

bigger.

Chapter summaryChapter 1 (the world of chocolate) is a short

introduction to chocolate and its history. The cacao

tree first grew in the rainforests of Central and South

America, but is now cultivated in many tropical

regions. The biggest consumers of chocolate are in

Europe. The chapter also mentions some books and

films on the theme of chocolate.

Chapter 2 (the first chocolate) outlines the early

history of chocolate, starting with the Olmecs of

Central America who used the sweet pulp from cacao

pods. Later the Maya started to grind the beans

themselves, using the resulting paste in a drink. The

Aztecs after them, who also valued cacao beans

highly, named the drink chocolatl.Chapter 3 (Chocolate comes to europe)

describes the arrival of explorers and conquistadors in

Central and South America, ultimately leading to the

downfall of the Aztec rulers. The conquistador Cortés

took cacao beans back to Spain. Despite attempts to

keep the process of chocolate making secret, the

drink eventually became popular all over Europe.

Chapter 4 (Machines and makers) talks about

the invention of the cocoa press, which meant that

cocoa solids could be extracted from the beans,

producing a powder that was ideal for making drinking

chocolate. People experimented with the leftover

cocoa butter, and it was at this time that big names

like Fry, Cadbury and Hershey started producing the

first chocolate bars.

Chapter 5 (from cacao pod to chocolate bar) is

about the process of producing chocolate, starting

with the picking of ripe cacao pods, followed by the

drying, blending, cooking, and shelling of the beans,

and ending with the addition of flavours.

Chapter 6 (the darker side of chocolate) covers

the use of slaves and children in cacao plantations,

both in the past and now. It also describes the work of

Fairtrade, which tries to achieve a better deal for

farmers and workers.

Chapter 7 (What is in chocolate?) gives details of

some of the stimulants and beneficial chemicals in

chocolate. It also mentions that some chocolate –

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STAGE

2ChocolatePre-reading activity

Word search

Match these words with the definitions below. Use the glossary at the back of Chocolate to help you.

bubble, century, cream, Easter, explore, farmer, grow, invent, jam, melt, mix, shell, slave, welcome

DEFINITIONS

1 a person who keeps animals or grows plants for food ________

2 to put different things together to make something new ________

3 a time of one hundred years ________

4 to show a visitor that you are happy to see them ________

5 to travel around a new place to learn about it ________

6 to put plants in the ground and look after them ________

7 the hard outside part of a nut ________

8 a Christian festival on a Sunday in March or April ________

9 to make something for the first time ________

10 a little ball of air in a liquid ________

11 to become liquid after becoming warmer ________

12 the thick yellow-white liquid on the top of milk ________

13 sweet food made from fruit and sugar ________

14 a person who must work for another person for no money ________

Now find the words in the word search below.

O S T M O M G S L A V E

B H W I B E R A C X Y A

U E E X P L O R E I P S

B L L O R T W H N N A T

B L C R E A M U T V U E

L K O D J Y E L U E F R

E A M F A R M E R N Y N

W V E Y M P S O Y T A E

To the teacherAim: To introduce some of the key vocabulary.

Time: 10–15 minutes

Organization: Give a copy of the worksheet to each

student or group of students. Ask students to match the

words and definitions. During class feedback, check the

pronunciation and meaning of all the words. Then ask

students to find the fourteen words in the word search.

When students have finished, ask students to discuss

how some of the words might relate to chocolate.

Key: 1 farmer, 2 mix, 3 century, 4 welcome, 5 explore, 6

grow, 7 shell, 8 Easter, 9 invent, 10 bubble, 11 melt, 12

cream, 13 jam, 14 slave.

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STAGE

2ChocolateWhile reading activity

Spot the mistakes

There are nine mistakes in the text. Find them and correct them. The first one is corrected for you.

The first people who used the cacao tree were the Olmecs three hundred years ago. Later, the Maya people grew cacao trees. They made a strong chocolate drink from the leaves. The Aztecs liked chocolate, too. Their last ruler, Moctezuma the Second, drank five cups a day.

In the early sixteenth century, conquistadors from England started to explore Central and South America. Hernán Cortés was one of these. He became ruler of the Aztec people, and when he went back to Spain he took some cacao beans for the queen. Soon, news of this wonderful drink went from country to country.

Later, a Swiss inventor called Conrad Van Houten invented the cocoa press. This machine took most of the cocoa butter out of the chocolate. J.S. Fry used this cocoa butter to make the world’s first chocolate bar in America.

Growing cacao trees and getting the beans needs a lot of work. The first plantation owners needed large numbers of new workers. People went to Australia to get slaves, and they sold them to plantation farmers. Between nine and twelve thousand Africans went across the Atlantic as slaves, and the slave traders became very rich.

thousand

To the teacherWhere: At the end of Chapter 6 (the darker side of chocolate).

Aim: To revise and consolidate some of the key facts

and vocabulary so far.

Time: 15–20 minutes

Organization: Give each student, or pair of students, a

copy of the summary, and ask them to find and correct

the mistakes. There are nine in total. Go through the

answers with the class, and see how many other related

details students can remember.

Key: hundred – thousand; leaves – beans; five – fifty;

England – spain; queen – king; Swiss – dutch; America

– england; Australia – africa; thousand – million.

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STAGE

2ChocolateAfter reading activity

Hidden word

Read the clues and fill in the word grid. Find the hidden name of a country.

CLUES

1 Children in Germany often put their ___ near the door on 5 December.

2 ___ chocolate is made without cocoa solids.

3 ___ is the American word for ‘biscuit’.

4 ___ helps farmers to get fair money when they sell cacao beans.

5 The ___ made a drink called chocolatl.

6 In the 1890s, ___ opened a large modern factory in the USA and began to make hundreds of thousands of milk chocolate bars.

7 In Japan and Korea, the most important day of the year for chocolate is 14 ___.

8 In 1492, Christopher ___ left Spain and sailed across the Atlantic.

9 The ___ in chocolate bars is bad for your teeth.

10 Chocolate is made from the ___ of the cacao tree.

11 On special days, the Maya people gave chocolate to their ___.

1 S H O E S

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

To the teacherAim: To revise some of the main facts about chocolate

described in the book.

Time: 15–20 minutes

Organization: Give each student, or pair of students, a

copy of the worksheet. Look at the first example with

the class and explain that students must complete the

grid with the words missing from the sentences. They

will then find the hidden country. When checking the

answers with the class, ask them to give as much detail

as they can about each answer.

Key: 1 shoes, 2 white, 3 cookie, 4 Fairtrade, 5 Aztecs,

6 Hershey, 7 February, 8 Columbus, 9 sugar, 10 beans,

11 gods. The hidden word is SWITZERLAND.