If you are looking for gourmet chocolates to give as gifts to your family and friends in special occasions, then you should consider giving them Belgian chocolates. There are so many kinds of chocolates but these chocolates are included among the best. You have probably heard of Swiss chocolates, which are also rich and high quality chocolates. But even the Swiss got their chocolate recipes from the Belgians.Did you know that to acquire cocoa hundreds of years ago, Leopold II, the ruler of Belgium, had to kill millions of Africans? It is like a chocolate war. Even at that time they already know the value of chocolates. But it was only a hundred and fifty years after this bloody event that Jean Nehaus created the popular praline, one of the very first Belgian chocolates. The family later on created a nice packaging for pralines so that they can be given as gifts. They called it Ballotin. Keep in mind that these are not the same as the pralines made in the south western part of the United States. Those US style pralines are made of pecan nuts coated with sugar. While the Belgian pralines are chocolates made of cacao.
So from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, the chocolate industry in Belgium started to flourish. And Belgians started to give chocolates as gifts to their loved ones. These days, people from all over the world also give Belgian chocolates as gifts especially in special occasions like birthdays, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and anniversaries.
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