Use the pulldown menus to visit other Food Central sections:
Recipes ---------- Today Recipe Swap	Resources ---------- Additives Alcohol Beer Beverages Coffee Dairy Fat Fruit Grains Herbs Italian Meat Organic Seafood Snacks Southern Sweets Tea Veggies Vitamins	Restaurants ---------- Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Dallas Denver Detroit Fort Worth Houston Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New Orleans NYC Orlando Philly Phoenix Pittsburgh Salt Lake San Antonio San Diego San Fran Seattle St. Louis Wash, D.C. ---------- Amsterdam Athens Bangkok Beijing Berlin Brussels Cairo Copenhagen Dublin Florence Frankfurt Hong Kong London Madrid Mex City Montreal Moscow Munich Nairobi Paris Prague Rio Rome Singapore St. Pburg. Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vienna Zurich

Care instructions for this chocolate dress may have included a warning about wearing it under hot lights

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Many people claim to have a passion for chocolate. But few wear it on their sleeves.

In the case of a weekend chocolate show, French designers showed off dresses made from the stuff sweet dreams are made of.

"In Paris two months ago, we showed this dress with a real model. But if the lights are too hot, we have a problem," said chocolatier Michel Richart, one of the exhibitors at the first ever U.S. chocolate show.

The show is patterned after a similar festival in Paris. In New York, the event has drawn more than 2,000 people a day to see a variety of items ranging from simple candies to whimsical, elaborate chocolate sculptures and centerpieces.

In 1997, Americans consumed an average of 12 pounds of chocolate per person. One in every three people say they prefer the taste of chocolate over any other flavor. That has turned the art of chocolate into a $13 billion industry as boxed and gourmet items have sweetened retailer profits.

The chocolate show is modeled after a Paris exhibit

"We are up 40 percent in sales every year in America," said Bernard Duclos of the French chocolate company Valrhona.

While millions of people savor chocolate each year, few realize its history goes back more than a millennium in the Americas.

Carole Bloom, author of "All About Chocolate," said the Mayans were known to use chocolate around 600 A.D. Several centuries later, Cortez conquered Mexico and brought cocoa with him back to the Old World, she said.

CNN's Cynthia Tornquist contributed to this report.