Chocolate: The Drink of the Aztec Gods What
do M&Ms, Hershey's, Godiva, Nestle, Ibarra, and Abuelita have
in Chocolate is made from seeds found inside a pod shaped like a football that grows directly off the cacao tree trunk. Cacao is originally from Central America and northern South America. The Maya established the earliest cocoa plantations throughout Central America. Today, the Ivory Coast in Africa and Brazil in South America are the largest producers of cacao. The Aztec and Maya were the first to prepare xocolatl. The Aztecs, who worshiped cacao as the food of the gods, believed that Tonacatecutli, goddess of food, and Calchiuhtlucue, goddess of water, were cocoa's guardians. In fact, cacao beans were so important that they were a form of currency for the Aztecs. Chocolate was originally prepared by cooking cacao beans with corn, honey and herbs. In 1519 Hernan Cortez was the first European to witness the consumption of xocolatl. He discovered it was a drink prepared from the seeds of the cacahuatl tree. On his third voyage to the Americas, Cortez drank xocolatl and attested to the wonderful flavor and understood why this was the drink of the gods to the Aztecs. By the time the first chocolate factory opened in 1765 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, chocolate was known the world over. But it wasn't until a Swiss candymaker added condensed milk to chocolate liquor (a fermented, non-alcoholic product of the cacao bean) that milk chocolate was developed. Many different methods have been developed to make different kinds of chocolate over the course of time. For example, when Forrest Mars, Sr. came across soldiers in the Spanish Civil War who were eating chocolate encased in a candy coating to keep them from melting, he was inspired and returned to the U.S. to invent the recipe for M&Ms Plain Chocolate Candies. According to Oralia Zacatelco Mejia, co-owner of the Mexican Deli Grocery at 3121 Bainbridge Avenue, chocolate is indispensable to several foods made by Mexicans. Zacatelco Mejia, who is originally from Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, still prepares chocolate as her ancestors have done for centuries. First and foremost, Mexican chocolate is a drink prepared by boiling Ibarra, Abuelita or Carlos V chocolate in water or milk. The mixture is blended by hand with a molinillo (similar to a wisk but made of wood). It is primarily prepared for festive occasions such as weddings, baptisms, and quince–eras. Mole (pronounced moh-leh) is a sauce made with chocolate and an elaborate combination of herbs and spread over cooked chicken. Champurrado (chahm-puh-rah-do), a drink made with chocolate, corn, cinnamon, and water, resembles the original xocolatl drink prepared by the Aztecs over 500 years ago. The next time you have Nestle's chocolate milk or eat some M&Ms, keep in mind that
chocolate was introduced to the world by the Aztecs only a few hundred years ago. If you
want to purchase Mexican chocolate and try your hand at making a drink celebrated, even
venerated, by the Aztecs, visit the Mexican Deli Grocery. Check out the World Wide Web at
home or your local library to find out more exciting information about xocolatl, the drink
of the gods. You can also get in touch with me by writing to the Norwood News or by e-mail
at: alfredobeloz@hotmail.com. See you next time. Photo by Alfredo Gomez-Belo
|
||
common?
The main ingredient found in these and many other foods is chocolate
and it comes from a tree called Theobroma cacao. The Latin term "Theobroma"
was given by the famous botanist Carl Linneaus and means "food
of the gods" - just what the Aztec and Maya thought when they
discovered how to prepare and drink xocolatl (pronounced sho-coh-lah-tl
- similar to the word "chocolate"). 