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The Chocolate Files
By Monica Shah
Oh Chocolate Tree, Oh Chocolate Tree!
OK, so there's really no such thing as a "chocolate tree." However, the main ingredient in chocolate, cacao beans, does grow on evergreen trees - inside large pods that hang from the trunk and stems.
The pods, which are usually yellow-green or dark red in color, are the size of a fist and look like a stretched-out melon. The seeds inside are cocoa beans! The fruit has a mild bittersweet chocolate flavor. The cacao tree hails from Central and South America, and is also cultivated in warm lands near the equator including the Caribbean, Africa and South-East Asia.
Not Sweet Enough
The Mayans and Aztecs of Central and South America were the first recorded consumers of chocolate. They used cacao to make a very bitter-tasting drink called xocoatl (pronounced chocolat) from the roasted beans. The drink was made of ground cacao beans mixed with a variety of local ingredients such as vanilla, pimiento, toasted corn and chili pepper. It was called the "food of the gods" and thought to have medicinal properties that could cure diarrhea and help fight fatigue. Cocoa beans were considered so valuable that the Incas even used them as local currency.
Christopher Columbus, Hernando Cortez and other explorers brought the beans back to Spain, where they were soon recognized as a great treasure. It was expensive and an acquired taste (chili pepper and chocolate?), so only the nobility could afford the luxury of chocolate. During the 1500's in Spain, spicy pepper was replaced with sugar and the drink was heated - the magic of sweet hot chocolate flavored with cinnamon and vanilla took the country by storm.
The Caviar of its Day
Within 100 years, hot chocolate was all the rage throughout Europe -- the wealthy and sophisticated flocked to Chocolate Houses, the coffee-shops of the day. The elite bought chocolate pots and cups, similar to teapot sets, which were created just for drinking the regal elixir. As other countries began cultivating cacao and took advantage of a mechanical grinding process via the steam engine, prices were eventually brought down and soon just about everyone in Europe and the Americas was able to afford chocolate.
A Bar is Born
In 1828, Dutch chocolate maker Conrad J. van Houten invented the cocoa press, which enabled the fat to be squeezed out from roasted cacao beans – this fat is cocoa butter which gives chocolate a smooth consistency. Twenty years later, Joseph Fry figured out how to mix the cocoa butter back into the cocoa powder and add sugar to form a paste that could be pressed into a mold. Soon after, a guy in the evaporated milk business, Henry Nestle, helped invent milk chocolate.
A Chocolate a Day…
Although the cocoa butter in chocolate contains saturated fat, which can increase cholesterol, chocolate is not all bad for you. Indulging in rich, sweet chocolate has been shown to make people feel good because it releases endorphins and serotonin.
And dark chocolate contains antioxidants, which could help reduce the risk of heart disease. Some tests have found that chocolate might even discourage tooth decay and the latest research indicates that eating chocolate might even help burn fat. None of this means you can sit back and eat chocolate at every meal, but having a couple of pieces now and then in a healthy diet, will probably do you more good than harm.
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