The History of Chocolate
—Christina
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/hwts-258-chocolate--62379904
Chocolate is a universally-known and near-universally loved treat. It is enjoyed in many different forms, from cake and brownies to ice cream and candy to chocolate drinks, just to name a few. It can be prepared with sugar and milk for a sweet and mild flavor or kept closer to its natural bitterness, and can even be used in savory and spicy dishes.
Chocolate is derived from the cacao bean, the seed of the fruit of the cacao tree. This tree originated in the Amazon basin and was first domesticated there about five thousand years ago. From there, it spread across South and Central America. The oldest known use is approximately four thousand years old, shown by traces of the chemical compounds that make up chocolate in clay vessels found at the site of an Olmec village. But it is the Mayans who are best-known for their consumption of chocolate in the Americas. It was consumed as a drink, mixed with spices, including chilis. It was used ceremonially and connected with the gods. Its consumption was limited to adult men, as it was believed to be too stimulating for women and children.
Chocolate was passed from the Maya to the Aztec, for whom it was considered sacred and, at first, only available to the upper classes or medicinally. By the time of European contact, however, chocolate was consumed throughout society, though the rich had better quality chocolate than commoners. Its preparation was skilled process of mixing and pouring between vessels in order to produce a foamy head, and the preparation was the sole reserve of women.
How chocolate was first introduced to Europeans is unclear. There is one report that Columbus got beans in trade during his fourth voyage; in this instance, the Spanish could see they were highly valued, but could not understand why. Conquistadors under Hernan Cortez were introduced to chocolate by the Aztec, but it seems to have been an acquired taste. They reported the drink was bitter and unpalatable, especially the supposedly prized foam.
The first record we have of chocolate in Europe is a gift given by a group of Mayans brought to the Spanish court by Dominican friars in the 1540s. The first official shipment of cacao to Spain didn’t happen for another four decades, and it would be a long time before it was widely popular or seen as anything other than medicinal. By the middle of the seventeenth century, chocolate had been introduced to most of Europe. In some places, like Spain, Portugal, and France, it was a luxury for the elite, but when England gained control over Spanish chocolate plantations in the Americas, chocolate started to be served in coffeehouses frequented by all levels of society. It was similarly consumed in England’s North American colonies.
The method of consumption of chocolate, as a drink, did not change much until the mid-nineteenth century. First, in 1828, Coenraad Johannes van Houten created what came to be called Dutch cocoa. His process separated the cocoa butter from the chocolate liquor, allowing the latter to be dried into a powder that could easily be mixed with water, making it more widely accessible. The flavor was also improved by treatment with alkaline salts, making it less bitter. In the 1840s, a coalition of chocolatiers, Fry and Sons, Cadbury, and Rowntree, created a method of combining the cocoa powder with cocoa butter and sugar, making the first chocolate bar. They marketed it as an alternative to alcohol, making it very popular among teetotalers. Chocolate production soon became industrialized with the use of a chocolate-mixing machine called a mélangeur, which more fully integrated the ingredients. And in 1875, milk chocolate was invented, by mixing the newly available powdered milk with cocoa powder.
Like so many mass-produced products of the era, its raw ingredients were produced by enslaved or functionally enslaved people. Cacao trees were grown plantation-style in many places across South and Central America and on the west African coast. Public pressure pushed major producers, like Cadbury’s, to investigate allegations and to change suppliers when there was evidence of worker abuse. However, questionable labor practices around chocolate have continued in some places to the modern day.
In 1879, the modern smooth texture of hard chocolate was created by Rudolphe Lindt via a process called conching, in which the chocolate liquids were heated with the cocoa butter. This created a product that was easier to mix with other ingredients, like batters, and the modern chocolate cake was born.
Tempering of chocolate was perfected in the 1920s. This is the process by which chocolate is repeatedly heated and cooled to a particular temperature, giving it a shiny appearance. Around the same time, eating solid chocolate overtook drinking it as the most common way to consume it. Lastly, in 1936, the Nestlé company created a bar that used only cocoa butter, not the cocoa solids; they called it white chocolate.
From this point on, chocolate was limited only by the imagination and skill of the person handling it. Chocolate bars come with seemingly every imaginable flavor or filling, from the classic caramel or cherry to potato chips and bacon. It can be used to express love or to drown one’s sorrows. Chocolate can be expensive and intricate, but remains a simple pleasure that can be enjoyed by anyone.