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The
earliest record of chocolate was over fifteen hundred years ago in
the South American rain forests, where the tropical mix of high
rain fall combined with high year round temperatures and humidity
provide the ideal climate for cultivation of the plant from which
chocolate is derived - the Cacao Tree.
The
Cacao Tree was worshipped by the Mayan civilisation who believed
it to be of divine origin, Cacao is a Mayan word meaning "God
Food" hence the tree's modern generic Latin name 'Theobrama
Cacao' meaning ‘Food of the Gods’, Cacao was corrupted
into the more familiar 'Cocoa' by Europeans. The Maya
brewed a bitter sweet drink by roasting and pounding the
seeds of the tree - cocoa beans - with maize and Capsicum peppers
and letting the mixture ferment. This drink was
reserved for use in ceremonies as well as for drinking by the
wealthy and religious elite, they also ate a Cacao porridge.
The
Aztecs also prized the beans, but because the
Aztec's lived further north in more arid regions in central
Mexico, where the climate
was not suitable for cultivation of the tree, they acquired the
beans through trade and the spoils of war. The Aztecs prized
the beans so highly they used them as currency - 100 beans
bought a Turkey or a slave - and tribute or Taxes were paid in
cocoa beans to Aztec emperors. The
Aztecs, like the Mayans, also enjoyed Cacao only as a
beverage made from the raw beans which also featured prominently
in ritual and as a luxury available only to the very wealthy. The
Aztecs called this drink Xocolatl,
the Spanish conquistadors found this almost impossible to
pronounce and so corrupted it, to the easier to pronounce 'Chocolat',
the English further changed this to Chocolate.
The
Aztec's regarded chocolate as an aphrodisiac and their Emperor,
Montezuma - who is quoted as saying of Xocolatl:
"The divine drink, which builds up
resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink
permits a man to walk for a whole day without food"
- reputedly drank it fifty times a day from a
golden goblet.
In
fact, the Aztec's prized Xocolatl well above Gold and Silver so
much so, that when
Montezuma was defeated by Cortez in 1519 and the victorious
'conquistadors'
searched
his palace for the Aztec treasury expecting to find Gold &
Silver, all they found were huge quantities of cocoa
beans. The Aztec Treasury consisted, not of precious metals, but
Cocoa Beans.
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Xocolatl!
or Chocolat or Chocolate as it became known, was brought to
Europe by Cortez, by this time the conquistadors had
learned to make the drink more palatable to European tastes by
mixing the ground roasted beans with sugar and vanilla (a practice
still continued today), thus
offsetting the bitterness of the brew the Aztec's drank.
The
first chocolate factories soon opened in Spain, where the dried
fermented beans brought back from the new world by the Spanish
treasure fleets were roasted and ground, and by the early 17th
century chocolate powder - from which the European version of the
drink was made - was being exported to other parts of Europe. The
Spanish kept the source of the drink - the beans - a secret for
many years, so successfully in fact, that when English buccaneers
boarded what they thought was a Spanish 'Treasure Galleon' in
1579, only to find it loaded with what appeared to be 'dried
sheep's droppings', they burned the whole ship in frustration. If
only they had known, chocolate was so expensive at that time, that it
was worth it's weight in Silver (if not Gold), Chocolate was
Treasure Indeed!
Within
a few years, the Cocoa beverage made from the powder produced in
Spain had become popular throughout Europe, in the Spanish
Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and - in about 1520 - it
arrived in England.
The
first Chocolate House in England opened in London in 1657 followed
rapidly by many others. Like the already well established coffee
houses they were used as clubs where the wealthy and business
community met to smoke a clay pipe of tobacco, conduct business
and socialise over a cup of chocolate.
BACK
TO AMERICA
Event's
went full circle when English colonists carried chocolate (and
coffee) with them to England's colonies in North America. Destined
to become the United States of America and Canada, they are now
the worlds largest consumers - by far - of both Chocolate and
Coffee, consuming over half of the words total production of
chocolate alone.
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THE
QUAKERS
The
Quakers were and still are an extreme pacifist religious sect, an
offshoot of the Puritans of English Civil War and Pilgrim Fathers
fame and a history of chocolate would not be complete without
mentioning their part in it. Some of the most famous names in
chocolate were Quakers, who for centuries held a virtual monopoly
of chocolate making in the English speaking world - Cadbury, Fry,
and Rowntree are probably the best known.
It's
probably at around the time of the English civil war between
Parliament and King Charles 1st, that the Quaker's first began
their historic association with Chocolate. Because of their
extreme pacifist religion, they were prohibited from most normal
business activities, so as an industrious people with a strong
belief in the work ethic (like the puritans), they involved
themselves in food related businesses and did very well. Baking
was a common occupation for them because bread was regarded as the
biblical " Staff Of Life", and Bakers in England were
the first to add chocolate to cakes so it would be a natural
progression for them to start making chocolate. They also invented
modern breakfast cereals but that's another story.
What
is certain is that the Fry, Rowntree and Cadbury families in
England among others, began chocolate making and in fact Joseph
Fry of Fry & Sons (founded 1728 in Bristol, England) is
credited with producing the worlds first chocolate bar. Fry's have
now all but disappeared (taken over by Cadbury) and Rowntree have
merged with the Swiss company Nestle (now the largest chocolate
manufacturer in the world),
but Cadbury have stayed with chocolate production and are now, if
not quite the largest, probably one of the best known Chocolate
makers in the world.
From
their earliest beginnings in business the Quakers were noted for
their enlightened treatment of their employees, providing not just
employment but everything needed for workers to better themselves
such as good housing etc. Cadbury built a whole large town for
their employees - complete with libraries, schools, shops and
Churches etc, - around their factory near Birmingham, England and
called it Bourneville. So next time you see Cadbury's chocolate
with the name Bournville on it you will know where it comes from.
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Chocolate
was first eaten in solid form when bakers in England began adding
cocoa powder to cakes in the mid 1600's. Then in 1828
a Dutch chemist, Johannes Van Houten, invented a method of
extracting the bitter tasting fat or "cocoa butter" from
the roasted ground beans, his aim was to make the drink smoother
and more palatable, however he unknowingly paved the way for solid
chocolate as we know it.
Chocolate
as we know it today first appeared in 1847
when Fry & Sons - founded 1728 in Bristol, England - mixed
Sugar with Cocoa Powder and Cocoa Butter (made by the Van Houten
process) to produce the first solid chocolate bar then, in 1875 a
Swiss manufacturer, Daniel Peters, found a way to combine (some
would say improve) cocoa powder and cocoa butter with sugar and
dried milk powder to produce the first milk chocolate.
and the
rest, is history, Chocolate History....
For
more information have a look at:
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Chocolate
was first eaten in solid form when bakers in England began adding
cocoa powder to cakes in the mid 1600's. In 1828
a Dutch chemist, Johannes Van Houten, invented a method of
extracting the bitter tasting fat or "cocoa butter" from
the roasted ground beans, his aim was to make the drink smoother
and more palatable, however he unknowingly paved the way for
chocolate as we know it.
Chocolate
as we know it today first appeared in 1847
when Fry & Sons - founded 1728 in Bristol, England - mixed
Sugar with Cocoa Powder and Cocoa Butter to produce the first
solid chocolate bar then, in 1875 a Swiss manufacturer, Daniel
Peters, found a way to combine (some would say improve) cocoa
powder and cocoa butter with sugar and dried milk powder to
produce the first milk chocolate.
and the
rest, is history....
For
more information have a look at:
Click
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