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Quote:
1. General
A reader of the old alt.food.chocolate once asked:
"I would be very much obliged if someone could tell me how a food
that has been associated with acne, headaches, obesity and many a trip
to the dentist has managed to attract so much favorable attention."
In the eighteenth century a Swedish naturalist named Carolus Linneaus
who created the modern system of naming all the living things on the earth
called the tree from which chocolate comes 'Cacao theobroma' - Cacao,
food of the gods. For centuries, the world has had a sweet love affair
with this most delectable of foods. Why *does* this sweet confection have
so many admirers? Perhaps we should start at the beginning...
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1.1 What is chocolate? Where does it come from?
Chocolate is a food made from the seeds of a tropical tree called
the cacao. These trees flourish in warm, moist climates. Most of the
world's cacao beans come from West Africa, where Ghana, the Ivory Coast
and Nigeria are the largest producers. Because of a spelling error,
probably by English traders long ago, these beans became known as cocoa
beans.
-=-=-=-=-
1.2 What is the history of chocolate?
(Excerpted with permission from the Godiva WWW site)
* In 600 A.D. the Mayans migrated into the northern regions of South
America, establishing the earliest known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan.
It has been argued that the Mayans had been familiar with cocoa several
centuries prior to this date. They considered it a valuable commodity,
used both as a means of payment and as units of calculation.
* Mayans and Aztecs took beans from the "cacao" tree and made a drink they
called "xocolatl." Aztec Indian legend held that cacao seeds had been
brought from Paradise and that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit
of the cacao tree..
* The word "chocolate" is said to derive from the Mayan "xocolatl"; cacao
from the Aztec "cacahuatl". The Mexican Indian word "chocolate" comes from
a combination of the terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water"); early
chocolate was only consumed in beverage form.
* Christopher Columbus is said to have brought back cacao beans to King
Ferdinand from his fourth visit to the New World, but they were overlooked
in favor of the many other treasures he had found.
* Chocolate was first noted in 1519 when Spanish explorer Hernando
Cortez visited the court of Emperor Montezuma of Mexico. American
historian William Hickling's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838)
reports that Montezuma "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a
potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices, and so prepared
as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually
dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma
consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to
the belief that it was an aphrodisiac.
* The first chocolate house was reputedly opened in London in 1657 by a
Frenchman. Costing 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate was considered
a beverage for the elite class. Sixteenth-century Spanish historian Oviedo
noted: "None but the rich and noble could afford to drink chocolatl as it
was literally drinking money. Cocoa passed currency as money among all
nations; thus a rabbit in Nicaragua sold for 10 cocoa nibs, and 100 of
these seeds could buy a tolerably good slave."
* Chocolate also appears to have been used as a medicinal remedy by
leading physicians of the day. Christopher Ludwig Hoffmann's treatise
Potus Chocolate recommends chocolate for many diseases, citing it as a
cure for Cardinal Richelieu's ills.
* With the Industrial Revolution came the mass production of chocolate,
spreading its popularity among the citizenry.
* Chocolate was introduced to the United States in 1765 when John Hanan
brought cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts,
to refine them with the help of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate
factory in the country was established there.
* Yet, chocolate wasn't really accepted by the American colonists until
fishermen from Gloucester, Massachusetts, accepted cocoa beans as payment
for cargo in tropical America.
* Where chocolate was mostly considered a beverage for centuries, and
predominantly for men, it became recognized as an appropriate drink for
children in the seventeenth century. It had many different additions:
milk, wine, beer, sweeteners, and spices. Drinking chocolate was considered
a very fashionable social event.
* Eating chocolate was introduced in 1674 in the form of rolls and cakes,
served in the various chocolate emporiums.
* Nestle (The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 3) declares that from
1800 to the present day, these four factors contributed to chocolate's
"coming of age" as a worldwide food product:
1. The introduction of cocoa powder in 1828;
2. The reduction of excise duties;
3. Improvements in transportation facilities, from plantation to factory;
4. The invention of eating chocolate, and improvements in manufacturing
methods.
* The New York Cocoa Exchange, located at the World Trade Center, was
begun October 1, 1925, so that buyers and sellers could get together for
transactions.
* In 1980 a story of chocolate espionage hit the world press when an
apprentice of the Swiss company of Suchard-Tobler unsuccessfully attempted
to sell secret chocolate recipes to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and other
countries.
* By the 1990s, chocolate had proven its popularity as a product, and its
success as a big business. Annual world consumption of cocoa beans
averages approximately 600,000 tons, and per capita chocolate consumption
is greatly on the rise. Chocolate manufacturing in the United States is a
multibillion-dollar industry. According to Norman Kolpas (1978, p. 106),
"We have seen how chocolate progressed from a primitive drink and food of
ancient Latin American tribes -- a part of their religious, commerce and
social life -- to a drink favored by the elite of European society and
gradually improved until it was in comparably drinkable and, later,
superbly edible. We have also followed its complex transformation from the
closely packed seeds of the fruit of an exotic tree to a wide variety
of carefully manufactured cocoa and chocolate products. Beyond the
historical, agricultural and commercial, and culinary sides to chocolate,
others: affect on our health and beauty, and inspiration to literature and
the arts."
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i am the great fan of chocolate and this is the great article that i ever read...it is informative knowing the history of chocolate...thanks
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