Category Archives: Best Chocolate
Is Chocolate Toothpaste An Appropriate Birthday Present or Valentine’s Day Gift? – by Gary S. Smolker
Set Your Imagination Free
Please advise of best place in the world to get a hot chocolate drink, chocolate pastry, chocolate cake and chocolate candy.
While I was researching to find answers to that question, my daughter Leah advised me that she would like me to buy her chocolate toothpaste as a gift for her upcoming birthday.
Do you think that is a good idea?
I have read that chocolate toothpaste is better for your dental hygiene (the health of your teeth) than regular toothpaste.
Thanks in advance for your ideas/assistance/comments.
To see how my question about purchasing chocolate toothpaste for Leah arose, see string of email correspondence below.
Best New Year Wishes,
Gary
Gary S. Smolker, Publisher Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog www.garysmolker.wordpress.com E-Mail:GSmolker@aol.com
By the way, below is a picture of my daughter Leah in Mitzpe Ramon (Israel), standing in front of the famous crater there.
Leah has traveled to 30 different countries.
Leah and I are now on a quest to find the best chocolate in the world.
We are now looking (searching the world over) for places that serve the best hot chocolate drinks, the best chocolate pastries, the best chocolate cake, and the best chocolate.
We request you help us succeed in this quest.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Gary
—–Original Message—– From: Gary Smoker <gsmolker@aol.com> To: Leah Smolker <easytospell03@yahoo.com> Sent: Fri, Jan 8, 2016 8:30 am Subject: Re: # 2 Re: Chocolate toothpaste
I haven’t checked out the link yet
Thanks for the Birthday suggestion
Sent from my iPhone
Gary S. Smolker
On Jan 7, 2016, at 11:20 PM, Leah Smolker <easytospell03@yahoo.com> wrote:
Did you check out the link?
Do you want to order 30 tubes for $300 and give some of to me for my upcoming Bday?
On Thursday, January 7, 2016 10:53 PM, Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com> wrote:
FABULOUS
—–Original Message—–
From: Leah Smolker <easytospell03@yahoo.com>
To: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Jan 7, 2016 10:41 pm
Subject: Re: Chocolate is a proven effective cough medicine In Re: My Chocolate Venture
I am now using toothpaste made out of chocolate:
On Thursday, January 7, 2016 10:40 PM, Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com> wrote:
See:
Never mind honey and lemon, the best cure for a cough is CHOCOLATE | Daily Mail Online
—–Original Message—–
From: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
To: easytospell03 <easytospell03@yahoo.com>
Cc:
Sent: Thu, Jan 7, 2016 10:30 pm
Subject: Re: Chocolate Venture
Lele,
I am searching for the best places in the world to have a hot chocolate, a chocolate pastry and a piece of chocolate.
This is a big research project, which eventually will require field research
Love,
DAD
—–Original Message—–
From: Leah Smolker <easytospell03@yahoo.com>
To: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Jan 7, 2016 10:20 pm
Subject: Re: Chocolate Venture
That is a very fancy place to eat chocolate.
I want to see Paris and I want to see Turin.
Turin is an insider’s place and Paris is world famous.
On Thursday, January 7, 2016 10:16 PM, Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com> wrote:
Veronica and JP,
I told Femme Fatale about my chocolate adventure idea.
Femme Fatale told me Angelina is the most famous (and best place) in Paris to have a hot chocolate.
We will discuss the “chocolate adventure/venture,” the best places in the world to have a hot chocolate drink and the best chocolates in the world — when you return from Japan in February.
Bon voyage.
Below is a link to Angelina.
http://www.angelina-paris.fr/en/
GARY
The Food of the Gods
There are many types of chocolate drinks.
For example, below is a picture of “Bicerin”, a traditional hot drink native to Turin, Italy made of espresso, drinking chocolate and whole milk served layered in a small rounded glass.
Caffee al Bicerin has been serving this drink in Turin’s Piazza della Consolata since the 18th Century right across from the Santuario della Consolata, and some believe that the drink was invented there.
Others believe that originated around 1704 in Caffee Fioro, which still stands in what is now via Po.
This beverage was praised by Alexandre Dumas in 1852.
My favorite chocolate pastry is a Chocolate Pilgrim’s Hat, prepared by my granddaughter — which she makes every Thanksgiving for her family to enjoy as dessert after their Thanksgiving dinner.
The Chocolate Pilgrim Hat shown in the two pictures below is composed of a Vanilla Marshmallow over which is poured melted chocolate.
The chocolate covered marshmallow “sits” on a fudge covered cookie.
The “hat band” of the Chocolate Pilgrim Hat is a layer of jelly.
Below is a side view of a Chocolate Pilgrim’s Hat and photograph shot looking straight down on the top of a Chocolate Pilgrim’s Hat.
I took those two pictures before Thanksgiving Dinner last year.
Throughout its thousands of years of existence chocolate has been known as “The Food of the Gods.”
Is chocolate a mood altering substance, a mind altering substance, a stimulant, an energizer, an aphrodisiac, a medicine?
Is hot chocolate a beneficial medicine which “restores natural heat, generates pure blood, enlivens the heart, conserves the natural faculties” and so on?
Does chocolate comfort the stomach and aid digestion?
For more information, ideas, and opinions on “chocolate” see the article titled “Food, Sex, Chocolate and Mortality Are the Four Great Givens of Human Existence” published by me on “The Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog” at http://www.garysmolker.wordpress.com on December 31, 2015.
Very early, it had been discovered all over Europe that the strong taste of chocolate made it an effective disguise for poisons.
The story is told of a Spanish “lady of quality” who took revenge on a lover who had left her without cause: she got him to her house, where she offered him a choice of a dagger or a poisoned cup of chocolate. He chose the latter, and drank it to the last drop, complaining that it lacked enough sugar to cover up the poison’s bitterness. The unfortunate lover died in agony within the hour; the woman, “had the barbarity of not leaving him until he was dead.”
Sustenance for the Lovelorn
In his memoirs of the Versailles court, Primi Visconti recounts the woes of lovelorn Chevalier de Vendome, despondent over an Italian lady:
“His love for her was such that he shut himself in his room for months on end, with the windows closed, with a guitar, paper and ink to write verse, without sleeping, without eating, drinking barely enough cups of chocolate to sustain him.”
Many Patients Give Their Dentist Chocolates
See string of recent email (copy below) between me and one of my friends, who is a dentist.
From: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
To: bigsupertooth <bigsupertooth@aol.com>
Cc:
Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2016 12:58 pm
Subject: # 2 Smart Men Know Sensual Women Love Chocolate & Surprise Surprise Many People GIVE THEIR DENTIST CHOCOLATES
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Hillard,
I haven’t read the article on chocolate toothpaste yet, so I don’t know if you brush or eat chocolate toothpaste.
But I do know that for the Spanish invaders who conquered Mexico (New Spain) chocolate was a drug, a medicine that was soon appreciated for its taste, its filling nature, and its stimulation when it was brought back to Spain.
Even coffee and tea, which arrived in extra-Peninsular Europe at about the same time as chocolate, were considered medicines.
In the end, whatever the ailments that initially caused people to take them as a cure, these potions engendered a craving for them.
By the way, published in 1591, a treatise on New World Foods by Juan de Cardenas asserts that cacao, if toasted and ground and mixed with a bit of atole gruel, is fattening and sustaining, aiding the digestion and making one happy and strong.
Chocolate Toothpaste Is Supposedly Superior to Regular Toothpaste
According to information posted on the website Leah referred me to (www.theodent.com), chocolate toothpaste strengthens your teeth better than fluoride toothpaste and is sold in Whole Foods.
The Spaniards who conquered Mexico originally took chocolate back to Spain because of their belief in its curative powers.
When Cortes conquered Mexico the Aztec’s medical knowledge and medical practices were light years ahead of the Spaniards because of the Aztec’s incredible knowledge of the plants that grew in their empire.
The Aztecs had an excellent empirical knowledge of the actions of hundreds of plants in effecting real cures.
The Aztec Emperor had a botanic garden at Huaxtepec in Morelos, where many plants were grown and tested.
The Importance Attributed to the Desire to Consume Chocolate and to the Physiological and Medicinal Powers Attributed to It In the Moral Debates and Moral Affairs and in the Religious & Daily Activities of Mankind
The following question has been debated for more than two and a half centuries: IS CHOCOLATE A DRINK, OR A FOOD?
Does it merely quench the thirst, or is the body also nourished by it?
If it was a food as well as a drink, then it could not be taken by practicing Catholics during specific fast times, at ecclesiastical fast times.
The arguments for and against this question raged among ecclesiastics and laymen for over two and a half centuries, and even involved popes.
The first shot in this war was fired in Mexico by Juan de Cardenas, in 1591. He argued that the idea of “fast” is to mortify the flesh by denying it food and thirst-quenching liquids. Therefore, chocolate in any form, at any time, breaks the fast.
This did not satisfy the viceroy in Mexico. He asked Fray Agustin Davila Padilla for his opinion, which was that neither chocolate nor wine broke the fast.
Later, at the instigation of the Procurator of the Province of Chiapas, a high ranking cleric consulted Pope Gregory XII. The Supreme Pontiff said it did not break the fast. Throughout the centuries that followed, other popes were similarly asked their advice on this weighty matter — Clement VII, Paul V, Pius V, Urban III, Clement XI, and Benedict XIV — and they all said the same thing.
Even that failed to stop the more puritanical clerics from trying to ban chocolate during the fast.
Historically speaking, the question of whether you should or should not brush your teeth with chocolate toothpaste is a new one.
I do not know if or how the theological leaders of Islam have addressed this issue, i.e. whether it is okay to eat or drink chocolate or to brush your teeth with chocolate toothpaste during Ramadan.
From: Hillard Torgan <bigsupertooth@aol.com>
To: gsmolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2016 10:29 am
Subject: Re: Smart Men Know Sensual Women Love Chocolate
gets about at lest 30-50 lbs a year.
From: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
To: bigsupertooth <bigsupertooth@aol.com
Sent: Fri, Jan 8, 2016 1:04 pm
Subject: Smart Men Know Sensual Women Love Chocolate
Is Chocolate Toothpaste An Appropriate Birthday Present or Valentine’s Day Gift? – by Gary S. Smolker
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Gary S. Smolker 