Chocolate

by Read Listen Learn

In the early 1500s, when the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes, landed in Mexico and began to push inland with a few dozen horsemen and a couple of hundred foot soldiers, the news soon reached the Mexican capital at Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, and the Aztec King, Moctezuma. At first, the king and his advisers did not know how to react. The Aztecs were brave, even cruel, warriors but they had no metal and these newcomers had swords and armour made of good steel. They also came on horses, unknown before then in Central America and bigger than any of the local animals. These uninvited guests swept all resistance aside as they approached the capital.

By the time they arrived at the city gates, Moctezuma, still not sure if these strangers were gods or just men, decided to play it safe and treat them as honoured guests. When Cortes came to the palace to meet the king of the Aztecs, he received formally a cup of dark brown liquid, quite gritty, with a bitter but enjoyable taste. Cortes was getting the highest honour of the Aztec court. He drank and noticed how the drink made him relaxed and happy. The Aztecs called it ‘xocolatl’ or ‘bitter water’.

However relaxing and uplifting chocolate may be, it wasn’t enough for Cortes who went on to kidnap and murder Moctezuma and thousands of other Mexican Indians. He took control of the country for the Spanish king and of as much gold as he could lay his hands on.

As a matter of record, he liked the chocolate drink and so did most of the Spaniards who came to Mexico and tried it. But, to the locals it was rather more than just a drink. It had a semi-religious status in their society.

First, there were three or four different kinds of ‘xocolatl’ drink, varying in strength and flavour. Then, it was also used to make a thick sauce for savoury food; this is called 'mole'. One thing that the Central Americans didn’t do with chocolate was add sugar, for the simple reason that they had none.

In fact, when it came to food, there were a lot of things that Central America didn’t have. Mostly, they lacked protein, a vital part of the human diet; which might explain why they liked to rip out and eat the hearts of any enemies they captured in war. It also explains why they carefully cultivated the cacao bush, fermenting the seeds, then using just the tips to roast and serve as a food or drink.

The cacao plant and the chocolate that comes from it have a number of special properties. Not only is it very nutritious, it has positive mood-altering effects and it also brings health benefits. It helps the blood flow, can help to prevent cancer, stimulates the brain and prevents coughs and diarrhoea. Its ability to make people feel happy and relaxed has led to claims that it is an aphrodisiac but there is no evidence of this.

The plant itself grows into a large bush or short tree and when the pods are ready, they are cut from the plant, the pod is opened and the seeds are left to rot or ferment slightly to develop the famous flavour. After fermenting, the seeds are dried and roasted. The shell is taken off leaving just the tips or ‘nibs’, to use the technical term. These nibs are then ground to a paste.

This is ‘cocoa mass’, and from here we can produce whatever we want: savoury sauce (mole), drinking chocolate, bars of chocolate, small sweets, ice-cream, etc.

The Spanish in Mexico and Central America were quick to export this new delight back to Europe where its popularity was confirmed when someone thought of adding a little sugar to the drink. People started to put quite a lot of milk with it and it soon became a very popular hot drink in Europe, the third after tea and coffee.

The chocolate for making the drink was often sold in rectangular bars with squares marked out and easy to break off and add to the water or milk. One square of chocolate was the right amount for one cup. Soon, these bars were sold with the sugar already added and it wasn’t long before people realised that these bars of sweetened chocolate made delicious eating as sweets and an excellent concentrated food for travellers and soldiers. And so the art of chocolate making developed in Europe with Belgium and Switzerland leading the way.

It is a very popular flavour and it has been added to many different forms of food. Mixed with coffee, it makes a drink or flavour called ‘mocha’. Chocolate bars can be ‘dark’, ‘milk’ or ‘white’. Dark chocolate has the most cacao in it and, of course, white chocolate has the least. And from there, the list is long: ice-cream, cakes, deserts, sauces, biscuits and cookies, as a coating for fruit and nuts or even coffee beans. And you can mould it into any shape or size.

Chocolate has even made a comeback as a savoury sauce. Some restaurants now serve rabbit or lambs’ kidneys in a chocolate sauce – no sugar of course. And the demand for chocolate just keeps going up.

A lot of the world’s chocolate still comes from Mexico and Central America but, for the last hundred years or so, most of the chocolate has come from West Africa. Countries like Ivory Coast and Ghana are big exporters of cacao and this American plant has adapted well to its new African environment.

In modern Europe and North America, chocolate is on the calendar and in the culture. Chocolate eggs and rabbits are now traditional at Easter. Chocolate is always on the menu at Christmas and it’s a popular gift on St. Valentine’s Day, or any time that romance is in the air. It is popular with both men and women but, undeniably, women have a special relationship with chocolate. A symbol of new love or a comfort to a broken heart, women often seem to want and need it in a way that men don’t. And now, recent research has shown that while both men and women can like chocolate, women alone are capable of forming a physical addiction to it. And this leads to another little difficulty. Chocolate is associated with weight problems. Eat a little of it and you are fine but, eat too much, and you can quickly get fat.

Chocolate has been around for at least three thousand years. It started as a bitter but sacred drink that Aztec priests used to wash down the human hearts they ate. It has become a global flavour revolution and a multi-billion dollar industry.