THE HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE

The Mayans first cultivated cocao more than 2000 years ago in Central
America, calling it "Food of the Gods".  In fact, the botanical name for the
cocoa plant is "Theobroma" from the ancient Greek words "Theo" (meaning God)
and "Broma" (food).

Xocolatl, meaning "warm liquid" was a drink prepared from crushed cocoa
beans and shared among the men at sacred rituals.  In addition, cocoa beans
were also a form of currency, with one tome apparently referring to the
going price of a rabbit as 4 cocoa beans.

It was also reknowned for it's restorative powers, with Aztec Emporer
Montezuma credited as saying "The divine drink, which builds up resistance
and fights fatigue.  A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for
a whole day without food".

Christopher Columbus returned to Spain in 1502 with a handful of these
beans, but the beverage did not receive favour in Spain for many years,
until Hernando Cortes added cane sugar as a sweetener and flavourings to
make it more palatable to European tastes.

Cortes realised the commercial potential of the beans very quickly.  The
Mayans had mistakenly recognised him as the reincarnation of a former
god-king and gave him run of the land.  He immediately planted cocoa bean
plantations on the mainland and in the Caribbean to grow this "money", and
experimented with sweeteners and flavourings to make the drink more
palatable.  Sadly, by the time the Mayans realised this was no God-king, but
just another gold-hungry pillager, it was too late and their empire was all
but crushed within three short years.

By 1525 the Spanish aristocracy loved the drink, which had evolved into a
sweetened, hotter chocolate flavoured with cinnamon and vanilla, among other
spices.  In 1580 the first chocolate processing plant was established in
Spain, under the direction of the Spanish monks in whose hands the
guardianship of this new food had been placed.

From there it didn't take long for the drink's fame to spread from monk to
monk throughout France, and during the 1615 wedding of France's Louis XIII
to Anne of Austria (the daughter of King Phillip II of Spain), the French
court discovered this drink and its revitalising and aphrodisiac properties.

By 1657 the first English Chocolate House was established,  and in the 18th
century it was popular more for therapeutic qualities than flavour, such as
the prevention of stomach aches.

The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 by Dutchman Hendrick Van Houten
meant more cocoa butter could be squeezed from the beans, and soon
afterwards, in 1847, the first ever solid chocolate bar was produced by
Fry's chocolate factory in Bristol, England.  They combined the melted cocoa
butter with sugar and cocoa powder to produce a revolution - a smooth
velvety product rather than the coarse grainy stuff which had gained
popularity up to that time.

In 1879 Henri Nestlé and Daniel Peter devised a method of combining milk and
chocolate in Vevey, Switzerland, and milk chocolate is today's favourite
form of the product, with 65% of American chocolate eaters preferring it to
other kinds of chocolate.

The United States industrialised the process, making chocolate affordable
for everybody, rather than just the wealthy, whith Frank Mars producing the
Milky Way in 1923, his son inventing the Mars bar soon afterwards, and
Milton Hershey making his eponymous Hershey bars.

Cocoa beans are chosen carefully, in much the same way as wine makers choose
grapes for their best vintages, and the finest chocolates are tasted in a
very similar fashion.  The beans are fermented, then dried, roasted,
shelled, refined and tempered before being pressed into any kind of form we
would recognise as chocolate!

There is, however, a huge difference between fine Swiss and Belgian
couverture chocolate and the cheap and nasty compound chocolate which makes
many of our mass produced easter eggs nowadays (they're the ones which go
whitish in the fridge).  Couverture chocolate has 32-39% cocoa butter,
allowing a much thinner and crisper layer of chocolate, and is velvety
smooth, compared with the coarser grained compound chocolate which contains
little or no cocoa butter at all.

The best accompaniments for chocolate are considered to be coffee, tawny
port, or a fine sherry such as a Pedro Ximinez.  Be sure to invite me over
when you're opening one of these delicious drops!

Go to www.chocolatesource.com/trivia/index.asp for an interesting trivia
quiz on chocolate and some more fun facts.

Thanx also to the following sites for valuable research and interesting
further reading:

www.chocolatesource.com/history/index.asp
www.aphrodite-chocolates.co.uk/easter-eggs-history.htm
www.candyusa.org/Chocolate/history.asp
www.kidzworld.com/site/p616.htm
www.richart-chocolates.com/b2c/chocolate/history_of_chocolate/0
www.easter-traditions.com/

Be excellent to each other!

Shane Pinnegar

March 2005

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