TT # 3 Chocolate - Food-of-the-Gods

Over 200 years ago the Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, name a tree with ugly rough, seed and pulp filled pods growing from its trunk - Theobroma cacao which translates as Food-of-the-gods cacao, something chocolate lovers would agree with. So having looked at the history of tea and coffee on the last two Thursday Thirteens, I thought with Valentines Day coming up I would stay with the theme and look at how that sinfully delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, chocolate heart arrived in its foil wrapper.

Firstly let me state that there are many varieties of Theobroma growing in the the warm tropical climates it thrives in... all are linked, but I am focusing on the Theobroma genus responsible for chocolate, namely Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario.

1. Contrary to popular belief, the Aztecs did not discover chocolate. They lived to high for it to grow. Cacao only came into their lives when they conquered large parts of Mexico in the 14C. But they were certainly involved with its evolution to what we know today. Cacao is a native plant of Latin America, namely The Amazon Basin and south of Lake Maracaibo in the foot hills of the Venezuelan and Colombian Andes. By the end of the first millenniumBC the plant had migrated to the tropical forests of Mexico and its other Central American neighbors.
2. The flavour and promise of the cacao seed (bean) in the delicious gooey white interior was discovered by Mesoamericans through their systematic, logical approach to most of their food, in preparation and preservation. In other words, they dried the seeds, ground them and discovered the powder left tasted different to the fresh fruit, and that grinding roasted cacao seeds they released oils, and a fragrance as the brown powder became a paste. This they formed into cakes or balls and dried for future use. It is thought that the Gulf Coast Olmecs or the Mayans mastered this technique, including the addition of chilies and other spices, even the red coloring agent, achiote - all still used today.
3. This ancient drink was frothy and highly prized and used as a sacred offering and is still retains this ceremonial aura today. You may have had them in Venezuela as 'popo' or in Oaxaca, Mexico as 'tejate'. This froth is said to represent a gift of personal vigor,or essential force from the one presenting the gift to its recipient (like giving chocolate to a loved one today). There were foods associated with chocolate which is still available today, such as the Mexican 'champurrado' a rich chocolate corn gruel, or the 'chorote' from Tabasco and Venezuela, or Ecuador's, 'chocolate con machica' chocolate blended with barley flour.
   
4. Cacao beans became so prized that they took on the status of legal tender, and it was in this form that in 1502 that Christopher Columbus and his teenage son, Ferdinand, came across cacao during his 4th New World Voyage. They came across a canoe party of Indians off HOnduras and noted that the Indians made such a fuss of the nuts they carried with them stooping to get any that fell into the water. Since neither spoke the others language the reason for their care remained a mystery for the next 17 years until Cortez's armies marched into Mexico.
5. It was only when Cortez and his companions saw Emperor Moctezuma offer them a frothy brown drink with great ceremony, that their desire to grab anything that alluded to wealth made them look at the brown paste, and beans more closely. For the Aztecs ranked certain cacao beans with the same value as gold and gems and used a an offering to the dead.
6. Cacao beans were specific units of money and commodities from turkey, grains to sex had their known price in cacao.
7. The Spaniards noticed shoppers at the Aztec markets were very knowledgeable when choosing their beans and knew where they came from and its locale, and what quality to look for. For like all produce its environment affects it. They soon discovered cacao dulce (sweet cacao) and cacao blanca (white cacao), forestero and criollo. It was criollo that endured and went back to Spain.
8. Spanish Aristocrats adopted drinking chocolate and within 50-60 years the custom had spread to France, Italy, England and most of Europe. C17 fine porcelain cups were made especially for drinking chocolate. In Mexico it was still drunk in a decorated gourd, and in Caracas drinking chocolate was all the rage resulting in mid-afternoon soirees called agasajos. It was the Spanish who married chocolate with sugar. Prehispanic Mexicans used honey or the sap from the heart of the maguey plant.
9. It was only in the late C17 that chocolate was used as a spice or flavoring in savory dishes such as the Sicilian caponata, the Cataliam estofados and hybridized Spanish-Indian moles of Mexico. But chocolate through the C17 and C18 was a beverage. The preparation was complex, and costly so only the wealthy could afford it. Some household even employed metates skilled chocolate drink makers their name taken from the grinding stones they used.
   
10. It is only after 1890 -1900 that recipe books contained recipes using chocolate. The powder would not break down enough for baking prior to this and was unpalatable.
    
11. In the late C17 blight hit the cacao crops and the crops in Trinadad were nearly wiped out. In order to replant they took seeds from the mainland and this would give rise to a new genus of cacao trinitario. This was less bitter than farestero, and more hardy than the criollo. Because of the cross pollinations it is farestero that is what we know of as chocolate today.
12. 1828 Conrad Van Houten of the Netherlands developed a way to mechanically extract the fat from the cacao resulting in cocao butter - this was used in soaps and suppositories, the solid mass left was sold as 'rock cocoa' which was then ground to a powder. By recombining the cocoa butter with the left over liqour confectioners developed 'eating chocolate'.
13. 1879 Swiss Rodolphe Lindt took the cocoa sugar mix and put it in a 'conche' machine which sloshed it back and forth for hours ( a process known as conching based on the metate) which led to the silky melting confection we now consider normal for chocolate.

Through the developments of these two men the price of chocolate dropped and it became the beverage of the masses. Companies used smiling children to advertise their product to sell it, such as Fry and Cadbury in England, Menier and Poulain in France,Lindt or Suchard in Switzerland, and Hershey in North America.

SO there you have your Valentine Chocolate Heart.