Amanda Randall
A FIRM FAVOURITE AMONG OUR FOREBEARS
Chocolate was a luxury once only consumed by the superrich but as commodity prices fell and production increased it has become part of everyday life and we have become avid consumers. Sales of chocolate in the UK topped £4bn in 2015, which equates to 437 million kilograms of the lovely stuff. But where does chocolate come from and how did it become such a firm favourite? Cacao trees are native to South America, its Latin genus name Theobromoa, given to it by 17th-century botanist Carl Linnaeus, translates to ‘food of the gods’. The Olmec people of Mexico made a chocolate drink from the beans around 3,500 years ago. Powder was extracted from dried, ground cacao beans and mixed with different flavourings like vanilla, nutmeg, jasmine and chilli to be used in many forms, including as a drink. The Mayans revered chocolate while the Aztecs used it in religious ceremonies attributing to it spiritual wisdom, high energy and enhanced sexual powers. Aztec emperor
Montezuma reckoned that one cup allowed a man to walk for a whole day without food. In Aztec communities, cacao beans also functioned as currency and as medicine for a variety of medical complaints. When Spanish explorers invaded Mexico in the 16th century, they too developed a taste for the bitter, spicy drink and shipped some home, the first known cargo arriving in Seville in 1585. Hot beverages were uncommon in Europe before coffee, tea, and chocolate came along. The original bitter cacao drink was made more palatable to European tastes by adding sugar and cinnamon, and its popularity spread across the continent, with members of the aristocracy taking their sweet hot chocolate in bed in the morning before rising. Coffee houses appeared in London about five years before the first dedicated chocolate house opened in 1657: ‘In Bishopgate, in Queen’s Head Alley, at a Frenchman’s house, is an excellent West Indian drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates’ (unmade meaning to take away for home preparation).