A model presents a dress made from chocolate during the Salon du Chocolat on March 15, 2013, in Bordeaux, western France.
September 13 is International Chocolate Day, according to the National Confectioners Association. Sure, you could spend the day eating the stuff, but that’s so predictable, considering all the other things you can do with it.
Need some inspiration? Here are 9 wacky ways people have used chocolate throughout history:
Currency
In addition to forming the drink of choice for the wealthy back in the seventeenth century, cacao beans were so valuable that they were used in financial transactions. One good turkey hen was worth 100 cacao beans, according to a 1545 list of commodity prices in Tlaxcala.
Fake Blood
Bosco chocolate syrup claims its product was used as blood in the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic Psycho.
Postage
[youtube=http://youtu.be/mBFW4PmRn6I]
In March 2013, Belgium’s post office Bpost started selling limited-edition stamps that smell and taste like chocolate, in honor of the country’s renowned chocolatiers. The varnish of the stamps contained 40% of a cocoa product.
Longest Sculpture
A Belgian chocolatier’s 111-foot, 8-inch chocolate model of a train holds the Guinness World Record for longest chocolate sculpture.
Hamster Bait
When a runaway hamster scurried into a hole underneath the kitchen of a home in Dunbar, Scotland, firefighters attempted to lure the rodent by dropping in a mini camera covered in chocolate beneath the floorboards and then sucking it out with a vacuum cleaner. It didn’t work.
Haute Couture
Le Salon du Chocolat’s chocolate fashion shows worldwide bring together chocolatiers and designers to make sweet outfits.
Toothpaste
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27f7Qlf8RA]
While dentists say chocolate rots your teeth, Theodent toothpaste uses cocoa beans as an alternative to fluoride — so you can swallow as much as you want.
Novelty Hotel
At The Chocolate Boutique Hotel in Bournemouth, England, the rooms are named after different words for chocolate, and some weekend packages include chocolate portraits.
A “Slip ‘n’ Slide”:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/auQkOOspn-8]
The people behind the YouTube channel Bangakang used 52 gallons of chocolate syrup and 200 yards of plastic sheeting to make this monstrosity.