|
The History of Chocolate
Chocolate and St. Valentine are both about 2,000 years old, but there is no record of the Mexican bean and the Roman priest ever meeting.
 Valentine secretly married couples after Emperor Claudius the Cruel forbade coupling. Little did the Roman pairs know that an ocean away Aztec couples not only married in public, but they drank chocolate at their wedding. Aztec legend held that cacao (kah KOW) seeds had been brought from the gods and that universal wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the tree. So far, which ancient society do you think is more advanced?
The Aztecs and the Mayans worshiped cacao (a.k.a. chocolate), centuries before Cadbury, Hershey and Mary See went to work tying Valentine to the bean. They called it “food of the gods,” asserting that the god Quetzalcoatl traveled to earth with a cacao tree imported from paradise. Quetzalcoatl taught the people how to roast and grind the seeds, making a paste that could be dissolved in water.
Montezuma, the Aztecan Head Honcho, was said to drink 50 or more shots of cacao pods per day from his golden goblet. Chocolate was so honored it even was used in religious ceremonies (tastes better than candles) or in place of money (tastes better than coins). Reportedly, it was more valuable then gold or silver, and 4 cacao beans could buy you a pumpkin, 10 beans a rabbit, and 100 could buy you a slave.
The Aztecs called it "xocalatl," meaning warm or bitter liquid. They then started putting stuff in it. Not having perfected the s’more, and with sugar still an ocean away, they mixed water, chilies and cornmeal into their cacao drinks. No word whether they got into almonds, caramel, peanut butter, M&M's or Snicker’s bars (“Chocolate” btw, comes "xocalatl," which is from a combination of the choco ("foam") and atl ("water").)
Like all other things magical in the ancient Americas, everything changed after Columbus. Conquistadors, ranging from Columbus in Guinea to Cortes in Teotihuacán, came for gold, slaves... and chocolate. (Note: chocolate, like America, was not actually discovered or invented by Columbus.) Mayan leaders brought ground cocoa to Spain's royalty and cacao bean shipments began arriving in Seville from Vera Cruz, Mexico.
Some people thought it was a medicine, others though it was an aphrodisiac. But credit the Spanish for adding cane sugar and cinnamon to their cocoa. But chocolate twas not for the peasant palette, for the Spanish and Portuguese kept the drink squirreled away with the priests in monasteries for nearly a century.
The 17th century saw the introduction of chocolate emporiums, featuring the earth-shattering debut of the chocolate cake. The cocoa press invention in the early 19th century marked the devaluation of cocoa beans, finally putting chocolate within reach of the masses.
But it wasn't until 1861 when Richard Cadbury was able to reintroduce Saint Valentine into this picture, creating a heart-shaped candy box for Valentine's Day, and began mass-marketing the first boxes of chocolate shortly thereafter.
Milton Hershey later made his bars, and Mary See’s chocolates will continue to be given from sweethearts to love-of-my-life’s for centuries on end. But whether you worships saints or chocolate... or both, you owe a debt of gratitude to the unlikely tandem of Valentine and Quetzalcoatl for bringing chocolate into the hearts and palettes to all lovers in 2005.
Yes the food for the Gods are now the food for our hearts!
Happy Valentines Day!
A Simple Valentine Recipe
Now if Valentine's Day finds you and your special someone alone, and away from the kids, the jobs, the cell phones, the TVs and all the other distractions of modern day life, try creating chocolate paint. The recipe is simple:
- 1 cup of heavy cream
- 2 1/2 cups of chocolate chips
- Put the cream in a pan, and slowly heat it until it begins to boil, stirring the pan bottom as you go so it does not burn.
- When the cream begins to rise, take it off the stove and pour it into a large glass bowl full of chocolate chips. Whisk until smooth, and then let it cool to the touch.
- You can, of course, dip strawberries and bananas and pretzels in it. Or your fingers, which can then be applied to your loved one.
Chocolate Trivia
Did you know:
- Chocolate is the best selling candy by far for Valentine’s Day
- Cocoa was re-named theobroma, “food of the gods”, by Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
- The first book completely about chocolate was Cardenas’ “Libro en el cual trata del chocolate”, published in Mexico in 1609
- Chocolate contains about 300 different compounds
- Over 20 million Hershey kisses are produced every day
- Americans eat 100 pounds of chocolate every second
- A bar of dark chocolate has less caffeine than a cup of coffee
Our Sponsor:
|
