 What
is Chocolate?
Chocolate is made from the fruit of the cacao tree and used as a flavoring and as an ingredient of beverages and various kinds of confectionery.
Chocolate is known as the "food of the gods", as it should
be. It is made from the beans of the Theobroma Cacao tree. In 1753 Swedish
naturalist,
Carolus Linnaeus, named the cacao tree Theobroma cacao. The Greek word
thiobroma interprets as "food of the gods".
Did you know that chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao (kah KOW)
tree? |
| Before chocolate was a sweet candy, it was a spicy drink. Some of the
earliest known chocolate drinkers were the ancient Maya and Aztecs of Mesoamerica.
The first people clearly known to have discovered the secret of cacao
were the Classic Period Maya (250-900 C.E. [A.D.]). The Maya and their
ancestors in Mesoamerica took the tree from the rainforest and grew it
in their own backyards, where they harvested, fermented, roasted, and ground
the seeds into a paste.
When mixed with water, chile peppers, cornmeal, and other ingredients, this paste
made a frothy, spicy chocolate drink. |
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| The Aztecs adopted cacao.
By 1400, the Aztec empire dominated a sizeable segment of Mesoamerica. The Aztecs traded with Maya and other peoples for cacao and often required that citizens and conquered peoples pay their tribute in cacao seeds—a form of Aztec money.
Like the earlier Maya, the Aztecs also consumed their bitter chocolate drink seasoned with spices—sugar was an agricultural product unavailable to the ancient Mesoamericans.
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Europe’s first contact with chocolate came during the conquest of Mexico in 1521. The Spaniards recognized the value attached to cacao and observed the Aztec custom of drinking chocolate. Soon after, the Spanish began to ship cacao seeds back home.
An expensive import, chocolate remained an elite beverage and a status symbol for Europe’s upper classes for the next 300 years.
When the Spanish brought cacao home, they doctored up the bitter brew with cinnamon and other spices and began sweetening it with sugar.
They managed to keep their delicious drink a Spanish secret for almost 100 years before the rest of Europe discovered what they were missing. Sweetened chocolate soon became the latest and greatest fad to hit the continent.
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