It’s almost Valentine’s Day, kids, and that means some of
you are purchasing and/or eating seasonal chocolates as we speak. If you hate
Valentine’s Day, they have the Easter chocolates out already. Personally, I
think every holiday should get chocolate. Where’s the Saint Patrick’s Day
chocolate? What about the President’s Day chocolate? Dammit, I want Lumpy Rug
Day chocolate.
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| Lumpy Rug Day: If your rug is lumpy, you'll know it. |
1) The cacao tree, from whose seeds chocolate is made, is a
native of the Amazon basin. At least 2,000 years before Christ, chocolate was
already cultivated and used extensively throughout Mesoamerican societies. Pottery
unearthed in Chiapas, Mexico contains cocoa residue dating back to 1900 BC.
2) The ancient Maya, of
recent failed apocalypse fame, were some of the first people to use actual
chocolate by at least 600 AD. They revered
cacao pods as symbols of fertility, used them in many of their religious
rites, and referred to cocoa as “god’s food” in their religious literature. They
built the world’s first cacao plantations.
3) Like the Maya, the Aztecs drank a thick, bitter, cold
chocolate drink as a tonic for good health. They had no sugar, so added hot
chili peppers or corn meal to the drink for extra flavor.
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| And, if you've never had hot chili chocolate, I heartily recommend it. |
By the 15th century, the Aztec empire was huge
and the Aztecs were using cacao beans as a form of currency. The use of
chocolate had spread as far as the Pueblo people of what would become the
American southwest, who traded for cacao beans with the Maya and other
Mesoamerican peoples. They, too, used the beans in a common drink. Spanish
sources of the time report that cacao drinks were an “acquired taste” among
native peoples.
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| Kind of like squirrel among Appalachian peoples. ~ Mike Pennington |
4) In 1513, Spanish explorer Hernando de Oviedo y Valdez was
able to buy a slave in Mesoamerica for 100 cacao beans. According to him, you
could get a hooker for ten beans, and four beans got you an eating rabbit. Yes,
I just used the phrase “eating rabbit.” Meaning, “a rabbit you can eat.”
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| For four beans, it better have been a fat one. |
5) Conquistador Hernan Cortes, seeing a path to the gold that,
as it turned out, did not exactly pave the streets of ancient Mexico,
established the first European-held cacao plantation in 1519. Later, in 1528,
he brought
cacao beans back to Europe, where he became the first person to add sugar
to the traditionally bitter cacao drink. Lo, it would be an acquired taste no
more. Vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg would find their way into
the chocolate drink, which would become fashionable among the Spanish
aristocracy, who would keep its existence secret from the rest of the world for
the next century. The chocolate cat would get out of the bag in 1615, when
Spanish princess Anne of Austria married King Louis XIII of France and brought
chocolate to the French court.
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| Chocolate cat lol |
6) Chocolate made its way to the United States in 1755, where
the first North American chocolate factory would appear in 1765. In 1830, the
first solid chocolate for eating appeared due to the efforts of J.S. Fry & Sons
chocolatiers (that’s French for “chocolate makers,” fuck you, spellcheck). The
first chocolate creams and bonbons would appear in the U.S. in 1851. In 1875,
Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate, and, in 1879, fellow
Swiss Rodolphe Lindt of Berne invented chocolate fondant. By 1900, Switzerland’s
chocolate production surpassed that of all other nations, making it the chocolate leader it is
today.
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| Bonjour! ~ Schnaggli |
