The god of cocoa

The source of chocolate is in actuality the beans of the cacao tree. This tree was named Theobroma Cacao (Theobroma is Latin for drink or food of the gods) by the Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist, Carl Linnaeus, latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linné.

Ecologically, this tree originated in the Amazon basin, probably in the upper reaches of this river basin which is located mainly in Brazil, but also in Peru and several other countries.

The word "cacao" or "Kakawa" is considered to be of Olmec origin. The Olmec people occupied an area of tropical forests south of Veracruz and the Gulf of Mexico from 1150 to 300 B.C. The Maya apparently adopted this word as either Kakawa or kakaw, depending on the period of time in which they lived. The Aztec, who lived 1376 -1520 A.D. believed that the creation of the cacao tree came from their god Quetzalcoatl (pronounced ket -sal -koh -AH- tul) who descended from heaven on a beam of a morning star and carried a cocoa tree taken from paradise. In both the Mayan and Aztec cultures cacao was the base for a thick, cold, unsweetened drink called Xocoatl (chocolate) believed to be a health elixir. Taken as a "gift of the gods" ,it was believed that the drink cured diseases, promoted fertility and was a sign for life. Since sugar was unknown to the Aztecs, different spices were used to add flavor. The Aztec emperor, Montezuma, drank thick chocolate dyed red usually with annatto. This may have represented blood.

Cocoa beans were used for currency; one hundred beans bought a slave and ten purchased a rabbit. It is said that Christopher Columbus and his son, Ferdinand, were surprised and confused by how much value the Native Americans placed on the cacao beans, saying:

"They seemed to hold these almonds [referring to the cacao beans] at a great price; for when they were brought on board ship together with their goods, I observed that when any of these almonds fell, they all stooped to pick it up, as if an eye had fallen."

A Maya wall mural depicting a cacao tree from the 9th century A.D.

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The Maya lived from around 1500 B.C. to 900 A.D. The Classic Period of the Maya is considered to have begun around 200 A.D. and lasted until 900 A.D. This period is sometimes referred to as the flowering, flourishing or high period of the Maya as a civilization. The Maya harvested, fermented, roasted and ground the cacao beans. They used a Metate to grind the beans and then mixed the paste with water to make their drink. The drink was poured from a standing position to a jug on the ground in order to produce foam.

   METATES

A Maya woman grinding cacao beans and nibs on a metate

A picture from 750 AD showing the process by which the foam was created

 16c depiction of a mexican woman preparing the cacao drink 

The chocolate of the Maya was served in the form of a thick cacao paste mixed with water or wine and Chipotle (pronounced "chee-poht-lay"), which was ground up with the cacao beans. Corn flour and annatto, which gave the drink a blood red color, were also added. The drink was served with thick foam on the top and in a special vessel used specifically for this purpose.

    Chipotle

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A cacao drinking vase found by Joe Ball accompanying the remains of an adolescent male buried around 725 A.D. in Belize. Around the top rim are hieroglyphs in Mayan script. The middle hieroglyph symbolizes the word KAKAW, the Mayan word for cacao ,and was chosen as Ganache Chocolate's logo in appreciation of the rich history of chocolate.

 
Christopher Columbus is thought to be the first to bring chocolate to Spain in around 1502, however, apparently the cacao beans or descriptions of the drink itself did not cause any interest at all. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had no idea how much these beans would be worth in the future.

In 1519, the conquistador, Hernando Cortez arrived along with 600 soldiers in the area known today as Mexico in order to conquer it. To their surprise the Aztec king, Montezuma, welcomed Cortez as the returning Quetzalcoatl , the god of creation, agriculture and cacao. The myth had it that the returning god-king was light skinned and bearded. Cortez exploited this myth and came as the god of cacao, who, according to the legend, was to be welcomed with great ceremony. This, along with the Aztec's fear of the Spanish weaponry (cannons) and horses, which they had never seen all contributed to little resistance and Cortez defeated the Aztec army and imprisoned Montezuma. Within three years Cortez was responsible for the fall of the Aztec empire, and had learned of the value of cacao beans as well. Although there is no real proof, it is generally assumed that in 1528 Cortez brought cacao back to Europe along with the utensils necessary for its preparation. Then in 1544, a delegation of Kekchi Maya from Guatemala visited the Spanish court of Prince Philip (later Philip II). Among the gifts were containers of the Maya chocolate drink— the first recorded appearance of cocoa in the Old World. By 1585 the first official shipment of cacao beans was sent to Seville, however, cacao was probably unofficially sent previous to this time. When vanilla and sugar became available in Spain, the bitter drink became sweet and drinking chocolate quickly became a pastime among the Spanish royalty.

Montezuma

 Cortez was welcomed with great ceremony

 Exactly how chocolate spread to France and the rest of Europe is still not entirely     known. There are a few theories that attempt to explain how drinking cocoa spread  throughout Europe and perhaps all are partially correct.

 One of the more well known theories suggests that Spanish monks  were given the responsibility for the care and process of the beans in order to prepare the drink, by Dominican Friars, but eventually gave the secret away to other monks and then word spread fast.

Another theory suggests that  an Italian tourist by the name of Francisco Carlotti was responsible for the spread of chocolate. He is thought to have broken the Spanish monopoly on cocoa. While  visiting in Central America he learned from the locals how to prepare the drink and that is how in 1606 chocolate arrived in Italy.

In 1615 chocolate arrived to France when Louis the XIII married the  Anne of Austria, daughter of King Phillip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. It was reputedly Queen Anne's Spanish maid, La Molinilla, who took the secret of  making the foamy chocolate drink from Spain to France when she came with with her mistress, Anne of Austria, who married Louis XIII in 1651.  Chocolate soon became the craze of the French court. It was fashionable to use fancy porcelain sets made especially for the chocolate drinking ceremony.   

Marie Antoinette's hot chocolate set

Chocolate pots

A diffferent and less known theory, often referred to as "The Dark Secret"

The Musee Basque, located in Bayonne, France, has an interesting exhibition which shows how, as early as 1609, Jewish immigrants roasted cocoa beans in a small oven and then ground them with a roller on a heated concave table on order to make a thick paste. This table was dragged by its owners from house to house in order to prepare the hot chocolate drink. These immigrants arrived between 1560-1601 to an area in Bayonne called Saint Esprit.
These were mostly Portuguese refugees (conversos) fleeing the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisition. Apparently they brought the secret over the border between France and Spain. Many Jews fled or were sent to South America, Mexico. Jamaica, Curacao, Surinam, to name just a few places. It is in these areas that they learned how to grow cocoa trees as well as the process of "bean to drink"  with the help of the local population, who had trusted them with their secret.  Interestingly, they also learned the secrets of growing, extracting and processing sugar and vanilla. Some of these conversos or "Crypto-Jews" (forced conversion to catholicism) played a major role in trading companies that brought cacao and sugar to Europe.

One such man is Benjamin d'Acosta de Andrade. Born as a converso in Portugal, he returned to Judaism in Dutch Brazil.  He was the owner of two of the biggest sugar plants and is known for establishing he first cacao processing plant in French territory with knowledge given to him by the Indians.  The Portuguese Jews of America sent their relatives in Bayonne, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla as well as the know-how to make chocolate drinks, which was at first kept a secret.

The Spanish-Jewish immigrants knew how to work with sugar , vanilla and cocoa. and had obtained permission to sell chocolate during Lent . Their reasoning to the Catholic authorities was that chocolate was a vegetable product and, therefore, was not in opposition to Lenten restrictions. The women could not manage to get through the lent services without their chocolate drink and luckily the Vatican allowed it. A bishop in Mexico was, supposedly, poisoned to death after not allowing the women their cocoa! This is how the  passing around of chocolates during or after these church services is thought to have begun!

Eventually, the secret of preparation was let out and in 1681 Catholic chocolatiers, who had learned the lengthy process of making the chocolate drink, united and had the local leaders issue ordinances  against the Jewish chocolatiers in order to make it difficult for them to sell. Their business doings were limited to not only inside Saint Esprit, but outside as well. They could not own or rent any properties and had to pay special taxes. By 1761 eleven
French and Spanish chocolatiers formed a Guild of chocolatiers. This gave them the exclusive right, according to the statutes of the guild, to be the sole chocolatiers that could sell chocolates or own stores. This was annulled in 1767 by the court in Bordeaux. However by 1802 only two Jewish chocolatiers remained.  By this time chocolate had spread throughout Europe. 

Written by Ilana Bar-Hai
Based on extensive research 
copyright© 2007. All rights reserved

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century marked the second Industrial revolution.  Mass production was possible and prices of chocolate became very reasonable. In 1983 Milton Hershey  established the Lancaster Caramel Company, which quickly became a success. Ten years later he bought chocolate-making machinery exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition for his factory. He sold his caramel factory for a million dollars and by 1905 had built what would become the world's largest chocolate producing factory, which used the latest in mass production machinery and had perfected his recipe for milk chocolate.

Hershey produced two chocolate bars for the United States army. The first, the Ration D bar, was heat resistant and not very tasty- so the soldiers wouldn't eat it before needing it! The second bar, the  "Tropical" was tastier. Between 1940 to 1945, over 3 billion of the Ration D Bars and Tropical Bars were produced and distributed to soldiers throughout the world. In 1939, the Hershey plant was capable of producing 100,000 ration bars a day. By the end of World War II, the  Hershey plant was producing these bars at the rate of 24 million a week. The Hershey Chocolate Company was awarded 5 Army-Navy 'E' Production Awards for exceeding expectations for quality and quantity in the production of the Ration D Bar and Tropical Bar during world war two.

Hershey's chocolate is an American favorite and reminds many Americans of their childhood. Hershey was a very socially conscious man, and actually built a whole town for his workers around his factory. He built them houses, churches, stores, schools, a zoo, and public transportation. He also opened a park in 1907.  Milton and his wife Catherine weren't able  to have children of their own so they started the Milton S. Hershey School in 1909. This school was for orphaned boys that gave them everything they needed to succeed in life as well as an education. This school was the beneficiary of much of Mr. Hershey's personal fortune. He also built the Hershey Hotel, many theaters and even a sports arena that seated over 7,000 people. The town changed its name to Hershey town as a show of respect to Milton Hershey.

 Milton Hershey

Hershey bar from 1943

 In the meanwhile, in Switzerland, in 1899, Jean Tobler and his sons founded the chocolate factory, "Fabrique de Chocolat Berne, Tobler & Cie."  In 1908 TOBLERONE was born.  Theodor Tobler (Jean Tobler's son) and Emil Baumann (Tobler's cousin), developed the chocolate which is made of almond nougat and chocolate. ("TOBLERONE" is a  play on the names "Tobler" and "Torrone," the Italian word for honey-almond nougat.). It is shaped like Switzerland's famous Matterhorn mountain and quickly became loved by the Swiss.  The rest of the world soon followed the Swiss!

  In 1912 in Belgium, Jean Neuhaus invented the first bite-sized filled chocolate and so the bonbon was born!  In 1913, swiss confiseur Jules Sechaud  invented a machine  for manufacturing filled chocolates.  A few years later, Jean Neuhaus' wife, Louise, created the "ballotin", a box still used today for pralines or bonbons.

Today Belgium is a center for chocolate, with many leading chocolatiers, like Neuhaus, Godiva, Simone Marie Guylian, Burie, Marcolini and CALLEBAUT.

Chocolate nowadays is like wine; from the inexpensive brands, which can be enjoyed by many , to the
ultra expensive, whose prices are justified only because there are those who are willing to pay more
just for the feeling of luxury. Luxury can cost over $850 per pound!

For chocophiles and connoisseurs, it is becoming more and more important to know exactly which type
of cacao beans were used, and their exact origin. In addition, it is also important to know the
cacao butter percentage. To many, not less important is whether the beans are organic and of course,
there is the issue of fair trade.

After so many years of history, we should enjoy and appreciate good chocolate more than ever - each
to his own favorite.