Chocolate

On his second voyage to the homeland, Columbus brought the cacao bean to Spain. The Spaniards tasted the bitter bean and ignored it.

Later, when Cortez shared a cup of chocolatl with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, it was served in golden goblets. Cortez realized that this was a rare delicacy, a drink reserved for the emperor and his court. He took careful note of how the cacao bean was processed and he made notes on how the chocolatl drink was prepared. The bitter bean had a bright future.

Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor, was a superstitious man. He dabbled in witchcraft and believed in omens. His gods whispered to him and demanded human blood sacrifices. He believed that human blood was needed to rejuvenate the earth and he was determined to carry out his religious duty. As he expanded his territory, he took prisoners whom he sacrificed in ritual ceremonies. He believed he had established his devotion to the gods, but his sorcerers forecast doom.

When his spies informed him that an army of four-legged monsters with human bodies were approaching from the east he didn’t know whether to flee or hide. Cortez rode into Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital, in November 1519. The emperor was stunned. He had never before seen a horse, he had never seen men clad in armor. He believed these men were sent by the gods. Ancient prophesies had promised that gods would send redemption by way of sea-faring strangers.

Montezuma tried to win favor with the Spanish invaders. He plied Cortez and his men with gifts and gave them much gold, which the Aztecs considered less valuable than the cacao bean. When Montezuma invited Cortez to share his chocolatl Cortez reciprocated by seizing Montezuma and holding him hostage.

While the emperor was held prisoner, Marina, a beautiful Indian maiden who had learned Spanish from early conquistadores, traveled with Cortez and acted as his interpreter. She persuaded tribal foes to join the siege against Montezuma and the Aztecs.

The deciding moment was the "noche triste" (night of sorrow) which came on June 30, 1520. The fighting was fierce, with much bloodshed on all sides. The Aztecs, despite their numerical superiority, were no match for the Spanish warriors with their armor, their weapons, and above all their horses. Afterwards Montezuma died in captivity.

While the number of Aztecs and other native people killed in armed conflict was great, the number who succumbed to European diseases was far greater. The common cold, pneumonia, small pox and other diseases to which the invaders had evolved immunity over many generations became the key factors leading to the downfall of these New World kingdoms. As disease rampaged through the population the spirit of the people was undermined by illness which contributed to the ascendancy of the Spanish and other colonial powers.

Cortez conquered Mexico and was able to deliver to his sovereign, Charles V (by that time the Holy Roman emperor) great quantities of gold and silver and many slaves, as well as thousands of indentured people in the land called New Spain. Chocolate was not offered by Cortez as part of the gift, nor were any of the New World foods mentioned in the list of bounty, but chocolatl soon became wildly popular among the Spanish populace.

The cacao tree’s natural habitat is in the tropical rain forests of South and Central America and the Caribbean islands, territory within 20 degrees of latitude both north and south of the equator. The trees thrive in the rain forest’s understory. A three-year-old tree produces clusters of white or pink flowers on the trunk and main branches of the tree. The flowers are pollinated by a minute fly and produce pods that may contain as many as 50 beans. The pod is lined with a sour-sweet pulp that attracts birds, monkeys and other animals. When birds and animals crack the pods and extract the pulp they disperse the beans and seed new trees.

Thousands of years ago farmers experimented with the scattered beans. They gathered them, cleaned, roasted and hulled them and then covered and let them ferment for a few days. Then the processed beans were ground into a powder for a drink the Maya called ka-ka-wa. The Spaniards transcribed these Maya syllables into their own language as cacao. Some unknown scribe probably transposed the vowels and gave us the name cocoa. The Swedish botanist Linnaeus gave the tree the name Theobroma cacao which translates in Greek to "cacao, food of the gods," and for chocolate lovers this is a worthy name.

No horses, oxen or other beasts of burden existed in the New World before the arrival of the Europeans. Shards of Mayan pottery show columns of men marching with heavy sacks of cacao beans strapped onto their backs. Llamas carried some light loads, but only men transported the coca bean - a valuable cargo. The beans were valued for more than the chocolate drink. The nibs of the fermented beans were believed to have magical power as medicine.

The New World people depended on plants for food and they looked to plants for medicines. They developed hundreds of ways to treat sickness, and many modern medicines such as aspirin have been inspired by their remedies. Ethnobotanists still travel to Mexico, South America and tropical islands to find healers who have guarded their medical secrets. Many of these may still be relevant for our time.

In Europe, illness was often attributed to sin and treated with drastic procedures such as bleeding and cupping. People used poultices, plasters and many other panaceas, but the basic pharmacopoeia rested on a theory of four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Imbalance of the humors was believed to cause disease, according to a theory first advanced by the great early physician Hippocrates who died in 377 BC. This theory persisted for many centuries, and the noted Greek physician Galen (130-200 A.D.) came up with many additional remedies to restore the balance of these humors. These ideas persisted for another thousand years, and these ancient beliefs formed the basis of medicine in Medieval Europe.

With the arrival of cacao, Spanish accounts of medicinal cures were hailed as almost magical. Chocolate contains two alkaloids, caffeine and theobromine, which may induce a mild stimulating effect. A more likely explanation for the cures is that the cacao drink was mixed with chilies, ginger and other ingredients which have a therapeutic effect. After long sea voyages the cacao beans often deteriorated and lost flavor. To disguise their rancid taste a variety of spices and seasonings were added, and it might well be these rather than the cacao bean itself which provided a cure.

For a long time the Spaniards tried to keep their chocolate drink secret, but word escaped and chocolate became a craze as Europe entered the Baroque 1700s. It had initially been enjoyed by the aristocracy and the clergy, but it soon became popular at bull fights and at the Auto de Fé. For the clerics it presented a problem. Was chocolate a food or a drink? If it was a food, it could not be imbibed during the Lenten fast. At times it was banned by the church, at other times it was incorporated into rituals.

In France the chocolate drinks were first served to the aristocracy in silver carafes called chocolatières. The lids allowed the thick chocolate to be stirred into a glittering foam. It remained a favorite drink for the philosophers and revolutionaries who followed. When Napoleon became emperor, chocolate was again an emperor’s favorite drink.

In England, despite political chaos, religious bigotry and royal beheadings, the 18th century was a time of world-shaking scientific progress. Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity and exploration of the solar system changed the perception of the world. William Harvey’s description of blood circulation changed the world’s perception of the human body.

Chocolate arrived in London when scientists, essayists, philosophers, poets and politicians were confronting new and innovative ideas. It was a heady time for intellectual discussion, a time to talk of liberty, democracy, the government’s role in human affairs. The Enlightenment had stirred the minds of scholars and the Chocolate House became a meeting place for argumentation. Some of the Chocolate Houses became spawning places for political entities that later emerged as political parties.

Novelists and playwrights wove chocolate into their plots and plays. George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 play "Arms and the Man" has a memorable scene where a Swiss soldier confesses that although he carries a revolver he carries no bullets because he prefers chocolates. Museums acquired paintings and watercolors with the popular theme of lovely ladies pouring chocolate in settings made famous by Vermeer and other artists of the time.

Chocolate in the 18^th century was still a drink, but it was soon to achieve greater status and importance. In 1828 a Dutch chemist, Coenraad Johannes Van Houten, acquired a patent for a hydraulic press that greatly reduced the amount of cacao fat in the pulverized bean. The hydraulic press separated the defatted powder, which we call cocoa, from the cocao fat, now important to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries and known as soothing cocoa butter.

The Van Houten breakthrough opened the way for candy making in Britain. Cocoa powder could be combined with cocoa fat and shaped into coatings for cakes, fruits and candies. The confectionary business exploded, and the pioneers in this industry were Cadbury, Fry and Rountree, all Quakers who maintained a high standard of quality.

Then came chocolate makers who degraded and disgraced the chocolate product by adding adulterants other than cocoa fat. "Junk chocolates" had some cocoa powder in them, but additives like potato starch, oil, lentils, flour, even red brick dust were used as thickeners. There was public dismay as well as public outrage. The Food and Drug Act and the Adulteration Act of 1872 restrained these practices, at least in the United States.

The Swiss chemist Rudolphe Lindt further refined chocolate texture and added more cocoa butter, making Swiss chocolate richer and more flavorful. The Swiss now dominate the upscale chocolate market and hold the record as the greatest per capita chocolate consumers. White chocolate is all cacao butter, but it deteriorates quickly and in the United States is called "white confectionary coating" because it contains no cocoa solids.

Chocolate in the United States focuses around a rags to riches story about a man named Hershey. Henry Snavely Hershey (1857-1945) was born into a pious Mennonite family in Pennsylvania. At age 15 he was apprenticed to a confectionary store. At 19 he opened his own candy business, with the financial help of his aunt. In 1893 at the World’s Colombian Chicago Exposition he saw in operation a chocolate machine. The machine had been manufactured by the same Dutch company that helped Van Houten put his defatting machine on the market. That was the machine that separated cocoa powder from cocoa butter and started the candy business. Hershey bought the new machine when the exhibition closed and he again changed the candy business.

Hershey has been called the Henry Ford of the chocolate business because he mechanized chocolate manufacture. In a few year he had his own town, his own estate, fields for growing sugar in Cuba and pasture land for 8000 cows on his Pennsylvania farm. Everything for growing every kind of chocolate was under his control. He was a benign industrialist and the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, smells of chocolate and is adorned with Hershey kisses.

To please a friend who is allergic to nuts but loves brownies I designed a recipe that substitutes mincemeat for nuts (see Green Tomato Mincemeat recipe in Chapter 7), and it has proved popular with all brownie lovers.

2 cubes of bitter chocolate (6 ounces)

1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup green tomato mincemeat

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup flour sifted

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)