  
lthough
indigenous South American tribes like the Toltec, Olmec and Mayans had
prized cacao for many centuries, the spread of its popularity and
cultivation began to accelerate towards the end of the 14th century when
the Aztecs adopted it. The custom was to roast and grind the beans, mixing
them with coveted ingredients like chiles, achiote (annatto), herbs,
flowers, honey and tree sap. The Aztec conquering armies carried dried
cacao beans to vast regions of Mexico, and by the time the Spaniards
landed in the 1520's, cacao was commonly transported long distances in
order to reach every corner of the realm. An early form of money,
"commodities ranging from turkeys to sex had their known price in
cacao"*. Aztec Emperor Moctezuma drank
frothed chocolate reportedly 50 times a day and cacao, like gems and gold
was offered as a sign of respect to the dead.
The
Spanish Conquistadors, recognizing the special value attributed to cacao
beans and the spicy beverage they painstakingly made, soon brought their
treasure back to the Old World in 1527 where it was quickly embraced. By
the early 17th century, drinking chocolate was the custom of Spanish
aristocracy and spread to France, Italy, England and Portugal. It
maintained its form as a highly spiced, thick and complex beverage, made
more popular by the Spanish innovation of adding sugar. Cacao also became
a flavoring in savory dishes both in Europe and colonial Mexico during
this period. Not to be outdone, European doctors, convinced of chocolate's
legendary powers, began prescribing it for a range of ailments including
syphilis, hemorrhoids, intestinal parasites and depression.
 The
European aristocracy developed elaborate rituals for drinking chocolate,
complete with requisite paraphernalia and time-consuming preparation
techniques. In addition to the flavorings typical in the Aztec custom,
European recipes often called for spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and anise,
nuts including hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios and pine nuts, and fruit or
flower essences. Some daring hosts would even mix cocoa with ambergris and
musk to impress their guests. Eventually, however, the use of expensive
spices and flavoring ingredients waned and chocolate was most often paired
with sugar.
The
migration from exotic luxury to ubiquity was, in part, a result of two
manufacturing innovations in the early 1800's. In 1820, in the
Netherlands, Conrad Van Houten discovered the process of separating cocoa
butter from a mass of solids that could be ground into a more stable
powder. He later treated the powder with alkali, which not only made it
much easier to mix with liquids to form drinking chocolate, but also
darkened the color (a particular benefit as cocoa producers began to
embrace the prolific, but lower quality and lighter Forastero variety).
The
second manufacturing change was the creation of conching machines. Until
the late 1800's chocolate was grainy in texture as a result of the more
primitive grinding process. Rodolphe Lindt added cocoa butter and mixed
the concoction for a minimum of 24 hours in his new machine, which
resulted in the silky, melt-in-your mouth texture we know today. With a
more even, amenable texture, this new technique propelled chocolate usage
into the realm of baking. The addition of milk by the Swiss in 1879
broadened the appeal of lower-priced cacao and continued chocolate's path
to a worldwide passion.
* The New Taste of Chocolate, by
Maricel Presilla
|
