Exhibit Highlights

Created by Chicago's Field Museum, Chocolate aims to orient visitors to the food's rich history, long before chocolate became a "superfood" and gourmet bars became a regular fixture in supermarket checkout aisles. The exhibit was transported to the MOS just last month, and has taken (temporary) root deep inside the museum's blue wing. There's no special cost to visiting the exhibit—you gain entry with regular museum admission—which is meaningful, since a family outing to MOS is pricey enough. When I arrived with my two younger sons, ages 8 and 5, last Saturday around lunchtime, it took a little hunting to find the entrance (hint: it's next to the permanent car engineering and racing booth). 

A warning from the outset to prepare you (or more importantly, the sweet tooths you'll have in tow): there's no chocolate to sample inside this exhibit. Once your kids can wrap their heads around the idea that you'll be learning about chocolate, not eating it, they will (hopefully) be able to relax and enjoy gaining some deep knowledge about one of their fave foods. The exhibit is set up as a timeline of how chocolate has been produced through the ages, so the first thing you see when you enter Chocolate's cave-like entrance is a replica of where the sweet treat all starts: the majestic cacao tree, which has football-sized seed pods. The lighting is dark, so if it's not too crowded, kids kind of feel like they're actually in a rainforest. One of those interactive video screens (which my kids, at least, always gravitate towards) show how birds and other creatures play a role in pollinating the plant. 

The next section of the exhibit—which showed how the Mayans and Aztecs figured out how to transform the bitter seeds into a rich drink and developed it as important currency with Europe— was most fascinating to me...which means, of course, that it was a little over my little kids' heads. They started to get excited again in the next section, as soon as they saw evidence of sugar entering the historical picture. There's a beautiful display of porcelain that wealthy Europeans used to serve their heavily sweetened new import. Even more enjoyable to them was around the next turn, when the curators smartly added a little bright color—in the form of American candy wrappers, ads, and such—into what was, before that, a pretty beige exhibit. On the day we were there, a museum staffer was situated at a table, where she was explaining to small groups how cocoa powder is liquified, tempered, and eventually molded into a chocolate bar—an informal talk that fascinated my 5-year-old, in particular.

Not surprisingly, for my little monkeys, the highlight of the entire exhibit was at the very end, where a wall-sized box of "chocolates" is available to touch. We all took turns choosing which among the giant sweets we would choose. And then, with mouths watering, we hit the snack bar—where, thankfully, the MOS was wise enough to make locally made and utterly delicious Taza chocolates available for purchase. My kids chose toffee-flecked bars; I sought out one of the 80% dark discs that I secretly stash on the upper shelf of the pantry (let's keep that between us, okay?). We left with a little less money in our pockets but heads—and bellies—full of some new knowledge about one of the world's most fascinating foods.

Know Before You Go

-Chocolate is on display through May 7
-The exhibit is free with regular museum admission: $25 for adults, $20 for kids ages 3-11
-It takes about 20-30 minutes to walk through with kids.

All photos courtesy of the author.