A Brief History of Chocolate

Confectionery history has a record of at least 4,000 years, when Egyptians displayed

their pleasures on papyrus. Sweetmeats were being sold in the marketplace in 1566 BC.

Yet chocolate didn't appear on the scene until the ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures

discovered the value of the cacao plant. It is reputed to have originated in the Amazon

or Orinoco basin.

In 600 A.D. the Mayans migrated into the northern regions of South America,

establishing the earliest known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan. It has been argued that

the Mayans had been familiar with cocoa several centuries prior to this date. They

considered it a valuable commodity, used both as a means of payment and as units of

calculation.

Mayans and Aztecs took beans from the "cacao" tree and made a drink they called

"xocoatl." Aztec Indian legend held that cacao seeds had been brought from Paradise and that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the cacao tree.

Ancient chronicles report that the Aztecs, believing that the god Quetzalcoatl traveled

to earth on a beam of the Morning Star with a cacao tree from Paradise, took his offering to the people. They learned from Quetzalcoatl how to roast and grind the cacao seeds, making a nourishing paste that could be dissolved in water. They added spices and called this drink "chocolatl," or bitter-water, and believed it brought universal wisdom and knowledge.

The word "chocolate" is said to derive from the Mayan "xocoatl"; cocoa from the Aztec

"cacahuatl." The Mexican Indian word "chocolate" comes from a combination of the

terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water"); early chocolate was only consumed in beverage

form. As part of a ritual in twelfth-century Mesoamerican marriages, a mug of the

frothy chocolate was shared.

Arthur W. Knapp, author of The Cocoa and Chocolate Industry (Pitman, 1923) points

out that if we believe Mexican mythology, "chocolate was consumed by the Gods in

Paradise, and the seed of cocoa was conveyed to man as a special blessing by the God of

the Air."

Ancient Mexicans believed that Tonacatecutli, the goddess of food, and

Calchiuhtlucue, the goddess of water, were guardian goddesses of cocoa. Each year they

performed human sacrifices for the goddesses, giving the victim cocoa at his last meal.

Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) was dissatisfied with the word

"cocoa," so renamed it "theobroma," Greek for "food of the gods."

Christopher Columbus is said to have brought back cacao beans to King Ferdinand

from his fourth visit to the New World, but they were overlooked in favor of the many

other treasures he had found.

Chocolate was first noted in 1519 when Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez visited the

court of Emperor Montezuma of Mexico. American historian William Hickling's

History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma "took no other

beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices,

and so prepared  as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an aphrodisiac.

In 1528 Cortez brought chocolate back from Mexico to the royal court of King Charles

V. Monks, hidden away in Spanish monasteries, processed the cocoa beans and kept

chocolate a secret for nearly a century. It made a profitable industry for Spain, which

planted cocoa trees in its overseas colonies.

It took an Italian traveler, Antonio Carletti, to discover the chocolate treasure in 1606

and take it into other parts of Europe.

“With the decline of Spain as a power, the secret of cacao leaked out at last, and the

Spanish Crown's monopoly of the chocolate trade came to an end. In a few years the

knowledge of it had spread through France, Italy, Germany, and England." (The Nestle

Company, Inc., White Plains, New York, The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 2.)

When the Spanish Princess Maria Theresa was betrothed to Louis XIV of France in

1615, she gave her fiancé an engagement gift of chocolate, packaged in an elegantly

ornate chest. Their marriage was symbolic of the marriage of chocolate in the Spanish-

Franco culture.

The first chocolate house was reputedly opened in London in 1657 by a Frenchman.

Costing 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate was considered a beverage for the elite

class. Sixteenth-century Spanish historian Oviedo noted: "None but the rich and noble

could afford to drink chocolatl as it was literally drinking money. Cocoa passed currency

as money among all nations; thus a rabbit in Nicaragua sold for 10 cocoa nibs, and 100 of these seeds could buy a tolerably good slave."

Chocolate also appears to have been used as a medicinal remedy by leading physicians

of the day. Christopher Ludwig Hoffmann's treatise Potus Chocolate recommends

chocolate for many diseases, citing it as a cure for Cardinal Richelieu's ills.

Chocolate traveled to the Low Countries with the Duke of Alba. By 1730, it had

dropped in price from $3 per lb to being within the financial reach of those other than

the very wealthy. The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 helped further to cut prices

and improve the quality of chocolate by squeezing out some of the cocoa butter and

giving the beverage a smoother consistency.

With the Industrial Revolution came the mass production of chocolate, spreading its

popularity among the citizenry.

Discussing the introduction of coffee, tea, and cocoa into Europe, Isaac Disraeli (1791-

1834) wrote in his six-volume Curiosities of Literature: "Chocolate the Spaniards

brought from Mexico, where it was denominated chocolatl. It was a coarse mixture of

ground cacao and Indian corn with roucou; but the Spaniards, liking its nourishment,

improved it into a richer compound with sugar, vanilla and other aromatics. We had

Chocolate houses in London long after coffee houses; they seemed to have associated

something more elegant and refined in their new form when the other had become

common."

Prince Albert's Exposition in 1851 in London was the first time the United States was

introduced to bonbons, chocolate creams, hand candies (called "boiled sweets"), and

caramels.

An 1891 publication on The Chocolate-Plant by Walter Baker a Co. records that, "At

the discovery of America, the natives of the narrower portion of the continent

bordering on the Caribbean Sea were found in possession of two luxuries which have

been every where recognized as worthy of extensive cultivation; namely, tobacco and

chocolate."

Chocolate was introduced to the United States in 1765 when John Hanan brought

cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts, to refine them with

the help of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate factory in the country was established

there.

Yet, chocolate wasn't really accepted by the American colonists until fishermen from

Gloucester, Massachusetts, accepted cocoa beans as payment for cargo in tropical

America.

Where chocolate was mostly considered a beverage for centuries, and predominantly

for men, it became recognized as an appropriate drink for children in the seventeenth

century. It had many different additions: milk, wine, beer, sweeteners, and spices. Dri

nking chocolate was considered a very fashionable social event.

Eating chocolate was introduced in 1674 in the form of rolls and cakes, served in the

various chocolate emporiums.

In 1747 Frederick the Great issued an edict forbidding the hawking of chocolate.

By 1795, Dr. Joseph Fry of Bristol, England, employed a steam engine for grinding cocoa

beans, an invention that led to the manufacture of chocolate on a large scale.

Around 1847, Fry & Sons sold a "Chocolat Delicieux a Manger," which is thought to be

the first chocolate bar for eating.

Nestle (The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 3) declares that from 1800 to the present

day, these four factors contributed to chocolate's "coming of age" as a worldwide food

product:

1.            The introduction of cocoa powder in 1828;

2.            The reduction of excise duties;

3.            Improvements in transportation facilities, from plantation to factory

4.            The invention of eating chocolate, and improvements in manufacturing methods.

By the year 1810, Venezuela was producing half the world's requirements for cocoa,

and one-third of all the cocoa produced in the world was being consumed by the

Spaniards.

The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 by C.J. Van Houten, a Dutch chocolate master,

helped reduce the price of chocolate and bring it to the masses. By squeezing out cocoa

butter from the beans, Van Houten's "dutching" was an alkalizing process.

In his 1923 volume The Cocoa and Chocolate Industry, Arthur W. Knapp attributes

the rise in popularity of cocoa to these innovations:

1.            The introduction by Van Houten of cocoa powder as we now know it.

2.            The reduction of the duty to a low figure which remained constant for a number of

3.            years.

4.            The great improvements that have taken place in the methods of transport.

5.            Improvements in the manufacture of eating chocolate.

Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, experimented for eight years before finally

inventing a means of making milk chocolate for eating in 1876. He brought his creation

to a Swiss firm that today is the world's largest producer of chocolate: Nestle.

In 1879 Rodolphe Lindt of Berne, Switzerland, produced chocolate that melted on the

tongue. He invented "conching," a means of heating and rolling chocolate to refine it.

After chocolate had been conched for 72 hours and had more cocoa butter added to it,

the original "fondant" was created.

Cadbury Brothers displayed eating chocolate in 1849 at an exhibition in Bingley Hall at

Birmingham, England.

Swiss confiseur Jules Sechaud of Montreux introduced a process for manufacturing

filled chocolates in 1913.

The New York Cocoa Exchange, located at the World Trade Center, was begun October

1, 1925, so that buyers and sellers could get together for transactions.

Brazil and the Ivory Coast are leaders in the cocoa bean belt, accounting for nearly half

of the world's cocoa.

While the United States leads the world in cocoa bean importation and chocolate

production, Switzerland continues as the leader in per capita chocolate consumption.

In 1980 a story of chocolate espionage hit the world press when an apprentice of the

Swiss company of Suchard-Tobler unsuccessfully attempted to sell secret chocolate

recipes to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

By the 1990s, chocolate had proven its popularity as a product, and its success as a big

business. Annual world consumption of cocoa beans averages approximately 600,000

tons, and per capita chocolate consumption is greatly on the rise. Chocolate manufact

uring in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry. According to Norman

Kolpas (1978, p. 106),

"We have seen how chocolate progressed from a primitive drink and food of ancient

Latin American tribes -- a part of their religious, commerce and social life -- to a drink

favored by the elite of European society and gradually improved until it was in

comparably drinkable and, later, superbly edible. We have also followed its complex

transformation from the closely packed seeds of the fruit of an exotic tree to a wide

variety of carefully manufactured cocoa and chocolate products. Beyond the historical,

agricultural and commercial, and culinary sides to chocolate, others: affect on our health

and beauty, and inspiration to literature and the arts."