Cacao...an experiment in making chocolate

 I bought a cacao pod for about $1 at Walmart last week.  I have a mission to make chocolate.  The interesting thing is that there are lots of instructions on the internet about how to make chocolate once you have the beans that are already fermented but not much about the process of fermentation or roasting the beans.  We are going to try and I am sure that we will get something at the end of it...each pod apparently has about 40 beans and I probably need lots more to actually make enough chocolate to enjoy.  This all about the proof of concept.

The pod, the seeds, the beginning of the fermentation process and, of course, Rebecca.

The fermentation is apparently critical for creating the chocolate flavor that we all love and traditionally it is done in banana leaves.