Introduction
Chocolate has been described as being more than a food, less than a drug. This description points to the singular position this wildly popular confection plays in our lives. Popular to the tune of $74 billion annually, chocolate begins as a tiny blossom on a small tropical tree. Only three out of a thousand of these will produce the cacao pods that after a labor intensive and lengthy journey, with several chemically and technically complex steps along the way, will end up in your hand as a candy bar.The products of this tropical tree have played many roles through the centuries. In 1753, Linnaeus designated the tree Theobroma cacao, which translates to “cacao, food of the gods.” Several hundred years later, chocolate lovers would agree with this appellation although for the Maya, who honored a cacao god, the term had a more literal and spiritual meaning. The Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and as food and drink for the privileged. Spaniards introduced the drinking of chocolate to Europe where, in the medical system of the time, those who could afford it used chocolate as a tonic and remedy. The purported health benefits of chocolate are once again creating a buzz as industry sponsored research suggests that dark chocolate might possibly lower blood pressure and provide antioxidant benefits.
Five hundred years after its adoption in liquid form by the Spanish court and nearly two hundred years after a Dutch chemist’s invention paved the way for its creamy solid form, chocolate continues to expand its role. A recent market for premium chocolate has created connoisseurs who seek out rarified confections in the form of single origin bars with a 72% cacao content infused with such back-to-the-future flavors as the aboriginal Mexican combination of ground chilies and vanilla. Today’s consumers of chocolate can have an effect on how it is grown and harvested by buying a bar with a “Fair Trade” label, insuring that the growers and workers that produced it earn a living wage under humane conditions. Those aware of the loss of biodiversity in tropical forests caused by cacao plantations can buy organically grown chocolate, which supports the more time consuming practices of ecological agriculture.
And remember, the food of the gods might, just might, be good for you.
How the Aztecs Prepared Chocolate
Although the earliest use of cacao has been traced to the Maya and Aztecs, the recipes for its preparation have come from Spanish colonizers.One of the earliest descriptions of the native grinding and drinking of cacao comes from writings published in 1556 by a man known to scholars as the Anonymous Conquerer, apparently an adventurer connected to Hernando Cortés.
These seeds which are called… cacao are ground and
made into powder, and other small seeds are ground, and this powder is
put into certain basins… and then they put water on it and mix it with a
spoon. And after having mixed it very well, they change it from one
basin to another, so that a foam is raised which they put in a vessel
made for the purpose. And when they wish to drink it, they mix it with
certain small spoons of gold or silver or wood, and drink it, and
drinking it one must open one’s mouth, because being foam one must give
it room to subside, and go down bit by bit.
This drink is the healthiest thing, and the
greatest sustenance of anything you could drink in the world, because he
who drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he walks, can go a
whole day without eating anything else.
Cacahuatl to Chocolate
Cultural hybridization not only changed the drink, it changed the name of the drink. By the 1570’s, the Spanish were using chocolatl, a combination of a Mayan (chocol=hot) and an Aztec (atl=water) word. One theory put forth for the name change is that the first two syllables of cacahuatl, the Aztec word for cacao, are a vulgar term for feces in most Romance languages.
Health Food of Barouque Era
In this facsimile from a 1640 English translation of an earlier work, a Spanish physician lists the many health-related effects of chocolate.
Drink of the Elite
And it was a drug taken in liquid form. Until the invention of a specialized hydraulic press in 1828 paved the way for the solid chocolate we know and love, chocolate was always a drink. It was commonly mixed with water or milk, with flavorings such as vanilla, cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice and chilies.
Coenraad Van Houten
The modern era of chocolate making began in 1828 when Van Houten patented his method for removing most of the cocoa butter from processed cacao, leaving a powdered chocolate. Untreated cocoa mass, or “liquor,” the end result of grinding cacao beans, contains about 53% cocoa butter. Van Houten invented a hydraulic press which reduced the amount to about 27%, leaving a cake that could be pulverized into a fine powder, which we know as cocoa. To improve this powder’s ability to mix with liquid, Van Houten treated it with alkaline salts, which came to be known as “Dutching.”
With the cocoa butter separated from the mass, chocolate makers now had a new and intriguing substance. Adding it to chocolate creates a creamier and more malleable product, making it supple enough to be molded into bars and more eleaborate filled confections.
More Than a Drink
Maya cacao god
From archeological evidence, it is clear that the natives used cacao in a wide array of drinks, gruels, porridges, powders and probably solid substances. Ground cornmeal was often added. Flavorings such as vanilla, chili peppers, honey, annatto and allspice were often added as well as the dried flowers of various Mesoamerican trees.
Several varieties of cacao are used in making chocolate. All are believed to have originated in the Amazon and upper Orinoco River basins.
Aphrodisiac?,
Health Food??,
Addictive???
Chocolate does contain small amounts of several psychoactive substances that act as stimulants and mood elevators. There is also the pleasurable sensation caused by the fact that this luscious substance melts at mouth temperature. And isn’t a heart-shaped box of chocolates the quintessentially romantic Valentine’s gift?
All that researchers can tell us is that although eating chocolate is undeniably gratifying, there is no scientific proof that it is either an aphrodisiac or addictive. And as for the recently touted health benefits of chocolate? There have been some intriguing discoveries regarding high blood pressure and chocolate’s antioxidant properties but no doctor or nutritionist is prescribing candy bars as health food.
© 2007 Albert R. Mann Library, C
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