Chocolate has become a commonplace,
especially in American culture. Chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cakes with
chocolate frosting and chocolate ganache, and chocolate covered candy bars are
all quintessential flavors that everyone knows. Most people don’t mind that
most common types of chocolate products have Parrafin Wax in them (1), and
associate the flavor with sweet delicacies. But this now baseline flavor that
we see as the opposite of vanilla was once locked to only one region, where it
was harvested by the Olmecs, then the Mayans, and finally by the Aztecs, where
it was used as both a currency (2) and was to be taken with chili peppers (3) rather
then with nougat.
The beans were first used as a
drink, dried and ground before being mixed with water to create a strong,
bitter and invigorating drink. Cacao fruits were also used as an item to trade.
They were a gift from the gods, and were valued higher then gold among the
Aztecs, being an upper class chocolate that lower classes would only consume
during special events (3), whereas those such as Kings would drink gallons at a
time. The name of this drink, Xocolatl, is potentially the source of the
English word for Chocolate (2). But how did the Cacao bean become the Cocoa fruit and become widespread in places such as the
old world?
There are conflicting theories as
to the way it travelled. There are some claims that Christopher Columbus
“found” the fruit by intercepting a trade ship and brought them back with them,
or that a group of friars presented them to the king as a gift (3). Another
major player would be Hernando Cortes, during their domination of the Aztec
empire, who noted down information about the fruit and pushed for the
construction of slave powered Cacao plantations in the newly conquered land
(4). However, there is no solid proof for who or how the fruit truly first
arrived on old world soil. It is much easier to track once it became
commonplace, however.
In Spain,
once the Cocoa
(a misspelled variation of Cacao which stuck in the English language (2))
fruits first arrived, they were initially used as medicine. However, being a
bitter taste the Spanish were not used to, they looked to sweeten it, using
sugar or honey to offset the taste. This made it a much more appetizing drink
for the Spanish courts and upper class, and soon cemented it as a sign of
status and culture. However, Cocoa
retained the regal roots from the Aztecs by still being unattainable to the
lower classes. It took centuries of technology to reach a point where anyone could taste chocolate.
Coenraad van Houten is credited
with this change. Being both a chemist and an engineer, Coenraad discovered how
to use Alkaline salts, making a powdered chocolate that mixed with water much
easier then the previous methods. Alongside that, he (or his father (3))
invented the Cocoa Press, a hydraulic way of separating the cocoa butter from
the cocoa beans. These two changes in the preparation of chocolate made it
suddenly easy to mass-produce chocolate powder, which made the prices go down
and therefore let everyone enjoy chocolate. This also made chocolate much
reasonable to experiment with, which brings us to our current view of chocolate
bars instead of Cocoa
powder (2).
Advancements came quick for
chocolate after the invention of the press, after staying stagnant for
centuries. J.S. Fry and Sons are credited with the creation of the first chocolate bar in 1847. In 1876,
Daniel Peter was the first to add dried milk powder to the chocolate powder,
creating the first milk chocolate. A few years later, the Nestle company was
made to bring this creation to the populace. In 1879, the Conch machine was
invented by Rudolf Lindt, a device that gave us the texture we’re currently
used to. It was at this point where the progress in chocolate began to slow, as
we reach the type of chocolate we see today (3).
However, although chocolate is a
fantastic taste and it is good to see it commonplace instead of reserved for
the highest echelon of society, there has always been a history of slavery tied
into chocolate. From Hernando Cortes’ installation of plantations and the
enslavement of the natives (4), to the current epidemic of over 1.5 million
children being used to cultivate chocolate today (5), there is still an intense
problem that needs to be focused on. Although it is completely possible for
slave-free chocolate to be made and used, Nestle and other companies continue
to exploit this fact (3). It’s our job to keep this in mind and push for better
regulations so we can eat chocolate, truly guilt free.
(1) Bliss,
Stasia. “Does Your Chocolate Contain Wax?” Guardian Liberty Voice, 31
Aug. 2016, https://guardianlv.com/2013/08/does-your-chocolate-contain-wax/.
(2) “A
Brief History of Chocolate.” BBC Bitesize, BBC, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zngsqp3.
(3)
“History of Chocolate.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14
Dec. 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/history-of-chocolate.
(4) “HERNANDO CORTES:
DISCOVERER OF COCOA?”
We Create Beautiful Travel-Inspired Chocolate., Cocoa Hernando , 7 Jan.
2013,
https://www.cocoahernando.com/hernando-cortes-discoverer-of-cocoa/#:~:text=Hernando%20Cortes%20was%20a%20famous,first%20European%20to%20discover%20chocolate.
(5) Slave free chocolate.
Slave Free Chocolate. (n.d.). from https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/
