It’s surprising how many things we take for granted in life; as we do when it comes to chocolate and cocoa. Like where it comes from, for example. For the record, it grows on trees (like coffee) but is a completely different plant. One thing’s for sure too, ancient Mayan parents couldn’t use the adage “money doesn’t grow on trees” on their errant spendthrift children for the simple reason that, for them, it actually did. It was less than two hundred years ago that people in central America still used the beans as currency! How many of us actually think about it as a plant?

The chocolate (cocoa) tree is called a Theobroma cacao and isn’t really big as trees go. It’s between 4 – 8 metres high and native to the tropical regions of the Americas. It’s the seeds of this tree that’s used to make the chocolate we buy, usually wrapped. The tree was ‘born’ in the Amazon and early humans carried it to Central America and Mesoamerica. Today it still grows wild in the Andean foothills in the Amazon & Orinoco river basins because it’s humid, there’s a lot of rain and the soil is still good; also, it likes growing in the shade and there are plenty of trees in those areas. The leaves of the tree are

poisonous and contain a milky liquid that tastes ghastly anyway – probably so that no-one will eat it. The flowers grow in clusters directly on the trunk & some of the older branches & have pink calyxes; these aren’t pollinated by butterflies but by tiny flies. The fruit’s ovoid, becomes an orangey colour when it ripens & each one can weigh about 500g; each pod contains 20 – 60 seeds (these are the beans) that are embedded in a white pulp. We make chocolate from the beans and in some countries they make a drink from the pulp. As coffee contains caffeine, so cocoa beans contain theobromine which is similar to caffeine. As you’ve seen, cocoa fat doesn’t contain theobromine;  each cocoa bean contains about 40-50% fat. The word Theobroma means “food of the gods” and cocoa comes from the Aztec language (Nahuatl), more specifically the word cacahuatl; the Spaniards heard the word and it sounded like cocoa to them.

HOT CHOCOLATE

Ingredients

• 120 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 500 ml semi-skimmed milk
• 30 g bitter cocoa powder plus some for serving
• 2 ½ tbsp caster sugar

Method

• Grate the chocolate and set aside before heating the milk, the sugar and the cocoa in a saucepan*.
• Remove from the heat, add the chocolate and whisk with an electric beater on high for at least 2-3 minutes.
• Once the hot chocolate is very frothy, serve in four large cups, dust with cocoa powder before serving.
• If you’re a chocoholic & hate milk, you can replace the milk with mineral water, if you like.
• * Caramelize the sugar just slightly before adding the milk but bear in mind that it’s very tricky & not something for new cooks to try.

In the Maya language, the word cacao was called Kakaw & they believed it was discovered by the gods in a mountain that also contained other special foods to be used by the Maya; according to them, a holy plumed serpent gave the cocoa to the Mayans after the goddess Xmucane (the divine grandmother) had created humans from maize. April was their month they honoured the cocoa god Ekk Chuah;by celebrating; bear in mind that they weren’t a gentle race by any means & apart from sacrificing a variety of animals (amongst which  any dog  they could get hold of that had cacao coloured markings); they also made offerings of cocoa, feathers and incense.

As far as the Aztecs were concerned, Quetzalcoatl discovered cacao (cacahuatl means bitter water) in a mountain filled with other plant foods. Cacao was offered regularly to a pantheon of Mexica deities and priests would lance their earlobes to cover the cocoa in blood so that the cocoa would be a suitable sacrifice to the gods. All rather bloodthirsty to me. Finally, the cacao drinks were only used by men in their rituals men because it was toxic for women & children.

CHOCOLATE FRAPPE

Ingredients

• 120 g dark chocolate (52% cocoa solids would be great)
• 500 ml mineral water
• 35 g natural cocoa powder (that’s the bitter kind & not the Dutch kind) plus a little to dust
• 55 g caster sugar

Method

• Grate the chocolate and bring the mineral water, the sugar and the cocoa powder to simmering point before removing this from the heat.
• Add the grated chocolate away from the heat and blend with your whisk with your hand held electric beater for at least 2-3 minutes.
• Once the chocolate is frothy, leave it to cool down & then pour this into glasses half filled with ice cubes and sprinkle with the cocoa powder, alternatively top with lightly whipped cream.

ANCIENT USE OF CACAO

• It was used it for medicinal purposes;
• It was used with food: maize with chilli, vanilla, honey & peanut butter! A new sandwich idea perhaps?
• The Aztecs mixed it with tobacco to smoke.
• It was used for ceremonial purposes.
• It was used in religious rituals;
• It was used for burial purposes.

COCOA FIRSTS

• The first Europeans to come into contact were Columbus & his crew when they ‘captured’ a canoe full of strange looking almonds and Guanaja.
• The first time Europeans actual saw someone drinking it, was the Cortez had a meeting with Moctezuma in Tenochtitlan in 1519; they noticed that he (Moctezuma) drank it after his attendants had spent quite a bit of time preparing it for him. Of course Cortez wanted some.
• The first time the Spaniards ever drank it at home was in 1544 when a group of Kekchi Maya nobles, thanks to some Domican friars, went to visit Prince Philip & it was made for them. I think the friars probably made it.  It took a century for cocoa to be used elsewhere in Europe, also only as a drink or for medicinal purposes.
• The first people to establish cacao plantations were the French who did so in the Caribbean; the Spaniards planted theirs in the Philippines.
• The first person to coin the genus & species Theobroma (cacao) was the Swede, Linnaeus (a naturalist) in 1753.

ANCIENT USE OF COCOA TODAY

The same pre-Hispanic drinks (like tejate) that were drunk centuries ago are still enjoyed in Mesoamerica today.

CURRENCY

I’ve mentioned before that the beans were used as currency but I didn’t mention that at one stage, the Aztecs were receiving annual tributes of 980 loads of cocoa (along with many other treasures). Each load consisted of exactly 8,000 beans (so glad I didn’t have to count those) and the quality was so high that 100 of them could buy enough cloth to make a cloak; in the Yucatán, cacao beans were used instead of coins until the 1840’s.

Cocoa powder (the correct name is the cocoa solids) is the part of the cocoa bean that isn’t fattening. The bit that is fattening is the cocoa butter (link) and the cocoa liquor is what you get when you melt the cocoa butter and cocoa solids. In order to separate them again, you need a press or use the Broma process; this is how you make cocoa powder which should be a reddish colour (and not a chocolate colour), must have a low pH (which is why it has acidic taste).  There are two kinds of cocoa powder:

• The natural reddish, more acidic powder (great for recipes using more fat & sugar)
• the Dutch powder which goes through a process to neutralize the acidity & give the powder a milder flavour & more chocolate brown colour (great for hot chocolate).

Cocoa solids are what lends a chocolate bar its characteristic flavor and color, while cocoa butter is what provides smoothness and a low melting point. Also, cocoa solids contain antioxidants that are extremely healthy which is why it’s preferable to eat chocolate high in cocoa solids and very low in cocoa butter.