By Beth Green
Can you do it?
Chocolate is a ubiquitous sweet worldwide, as much in the Eastern
Hemisphere as in the Western. But here it’s an imported sin, a luxurious nibble
that has some aura of otherness about it.
Except, of course, in the Philippines. The Spanish, those plant-introducing
conquistadores, brought cocoa to the Philippines in the 1600s, and cocoa
farming has been a commercial concern here since the 1950s. Although the impact
of Philippine cocoa is negligible on the world market—most cocoa production seems
to be in Cote d’Ivoire, according to Wikipedia—the domestic market here is
chock-full of great chocolate. I don’t mean candy bars either—foodstuffs made
with actual cacao, like cakes and shakes, are just plain awesome in the
Philippines.
However, if you Google “chocolate” and “Philippines” together, one of
the first entries you’ll find isn’t for a confectioner’s. Or a baker’s. Or even
for a farmer. It’s for the Chocolate Hills, a curious land formation that is
unique to Bohol, an island province.
The Chocolate Hills are conical mounds, some 100 feet high or more, that
rise up steeply, giving way to rounded tops, and are covered by grasses. Seeing
one of these hills might remind you of a backyard anthill a thousand times
high. Except, you’re multiplying that thousand-times-magnified anthill by one
thousand hills, creating a vast, strange landscape that’s somewhere between
bumpy and beautiful. There are, according to a blog on the Bohol provincial
government’s website, about 1,200 of these hills, a number that’s hard to
comprehend when you climb up one and look out to the horizon filled with the
same round hills.
Legend has it that giants made this crazy, carbuncular landscape. Either
fighting giants or lovesick giants, too preoccupied by their over-sized
emotions to have a care about the breasts of earth they pushed up. Science
gives us an interesting answer too: tectonic forces pushed the limestone seabed
above water, and then rain and wind wore them down to Hershey’s Kisses of
karst.
But how did they get the name “Chocolate Hills?” Because you grow
chocolate there? Because they’re shaped like chocolate drops? Because an old
place name happens to sound like the English word chocolate? Because when you
go to the visitor’s center they give you free chocolate? These were all my
guesses when we traveled to see them on my first visit to the Philippines, in
2011. But I was being too literal, and my guesses, even that tempting last one,
were all wrong.
The Chocolate Hills are named after the hue of the grass that grows on
the limestone slopes; when it dries up once a year, it turns the thousand
smooth hills a chocolatey color—a treat, but only for the eyes.
Beth,
ReplyDeleteThere are chocolatiers in Central Asia! Want me to start naming them?
Kelly
There are chocolatiers in Iran, too, though I can't name any specific names off the top of my head. The Chocolate Hills are lovely, though, even in their non-chocolately season.
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