Chocolate

Today, chocolate is as popular as ever, whether it comes in a foil-wrapped bar, in a rich drink from a continental cafe, or spread over the writhing naked body of your new lover. But there was a time when chocolate was relatively unknown in Europe.
All changed in the 16th Century, when Francis Drake, browsing the newspaper over his morning rice crispies, saw an article about the conquest of South America by spaniels. While ravaging the continent, the hungry conquistadogs had come across a city made entirely of chocolate, which they ate. Intrigued, Drake managed to source some chocolate from a business associate known only as Turkish John. The great adventurer gave it a try and was delighted. Where Francis Drake led, fashionable society followed, and the more classy taverns of London were soon thronged with people drinking chocolate, twirling their moustaches and pretending to be pirates.

Manufacture

Chocolate is created by grinding up tiny beings called chocs. These live wild in the jungles of South America and Africa, and are caught in nets each night by hunters. The ground chocs are turned into a goo which is poured into moulds to make ingots called choccablocks. These are then sent to a mountaintop factory in Switzerland, where Neil Kinnock uses secret incantations to turn them into chocolate bars, Easter eggs an' ting.

Chocolate is a precious commodity, and several national currencies are guaranteed upon a chocolate standard, though many nations abandoned this after 'Brown Monday', when the price of Rolos collapsed.