Chocolate travels to Europe
Did you know… Chocolate and marshmallow are distant botanical relatives?

[February 6, 2023 | Montrose Mirror | By Kathryn R. Burke]

Did you know? Chocolate and marshmallow are distant botanical relatives. The cacao tree is also related to cotton, hibiscus, and okra. Theobromine, the main ingredient in cacao or chocolate is a stimulant and that has behavioral effects similar to caffeine found in tea and cola.⁽²⁾ It’s also an aphrodisiac. Cocoa Powder is a powerful antioxidant; it’s a common ingredient in skin cleansers and cosmetics. It’s also considered a health food for that same reason.(4) Theobroma oil, also known as cocoa butter, is a popular moisturizer for people with dark skin, and is often used to diminish stretch marks from pregnancy. Finally, did you know that chocolate has been around for more than 5,300 years?^{(1, 15)}

So, cleanse and beautify your face with it before an amorous interlude where you will consume chocolate. If you wind up pregnant and sleepy afterward, drink chocolate to stay awake and rub cocoa butter on your tummy to get rid of stretch marks. (Cocoa butter also helps with post-surgery scars; sorry guys, it does not cure baldness.) Finally, think of all the exciting, romantic fun you can have (regardless of fertility expectations) making smores and washing them down with hot chocolate. Yum.

Chocolate started out as a bitter drink with the Olmec in Mesoamerica (Central and South America). (They didn’t have sugar.) The Maya considered it a gift from the gods, using the drink for religious celebrations and rituals (like human sacrifices—cutting the living heart, which resembles a cocoa pod, from its victim). The Aztec (further north, in Mexico) considered it more valuable than gold and used it as currency. They also celebrated its stimulant and aphrodisiac effects; their Emperor Montezuma, a large man with large appetites, reportedly drank gallons of it a day.⁽¹⁾ [Read story on chocolate’s origin.]

It all changed with the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. Seeking gold and professing a desire to spread Christianity, Spaniards had sailed from the Caribbean (which they had already plundered). Under the leadership of Hernán Cortés, a force of 600 men landed on the shores of a densely populated area with a society of 21 million people, one of the largest in the world. The Aztec were the largest population, but they were disliked because of high taxation and sacrificial practices. Cortés easily rounded up disgruntled warriors as he advanced on Aztec’s capital, Tenochtitlán. With a population of nearly 300,000, it was one of the largest cities in the world. Cortés had about 1,000 men when he arrived, but it didn’t slow him down, and, unfortunately, the Aztec did not recognize him as an adversary.⁽⁸⁾

Thinking the Spanish might be reincarnated deities or followers of the white-skinned and bearded Teotihuacán god, Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec greeted the invaders as guests, plying them with gifts and chocolate. Cortés and his gang had ulterior motives. Observing that the Aztec people paid their tributes to their emperor with great quantities of cocoa beans, and that Montezuma had over 1,000 million of the valuable beans in his royal coffers⁽⁵⁾ Cortés decided to confiscate the beans along with the gold and haul it all back to Spain.

His first attempt failed. His troops regrouped, and one year later, and allied with nearly 200,000 Indigenous warriors from other city-states, they succeeded. Superior weaponry, European technology and war tactics, coupled with diseases brought by the Europeans to which the Indians had no immunity, led to the downfall of the Aztec Empire.⁽⁵⁾

1500s. But cacao not only survived, it prospered, and thanks to the Spanish, made its way to Europe. Initially, it became the drink of kings and aristocrats, much as it had been in Mesoamerica. Stories vary as to who was the first to introduce it. Some accounts point to Christopher Columbus intercepting a trade ship in 1502 and bringing the beans back to Spain. It’s certain that Cortés, brought cacao beans back with him. Realizing the benefits he could reap from it, in 1528 he also brought back the equipment necessary for its preparation. Its reception was enhanced when nuns, working as missionaries in Mexico, started sweetening it with sugar.⁽⁷⁾

It’s more likely that it was the friars brought it in 1544, when they   presented Guatemalan Mayans to Philip II of Spain in 1544 and brought cacao beans along as a gift.(1) “By the time chocolate is coming back from New Spain or Mexico, the era of conquistadors was long gone,” says Marcy Norton, author of Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World. (17)

No matter how chocolate got to Spain, by the late 1500s it was a much-loved indulgence by the Spanish court, and Spain began importing chocolate in 1585. It was expensive to import and prepare, so the elite could afford it. They also believed it had health benefits, so it was considered a necessary beverage; consumption during Lent was even permitted.⁽⁷⁾

** Note: The Spanish pronounce it cho-c0-lat-teh. They don’t say cacao because “caca” means poop in Spanish. Might be the same color, but definitely not the same thing.

1600s. The Spanish kept chocolate somewhat of a secret, but the word got out. Soon, trading ships from other countries began transporting it back home for production. It was introduced to France in 1615, when Ana Maria Mauricia, daughter of Spanish king Phillip III, married Louis XIII and brought the drink with her.⁽⁷⁾

As other Europeans tasted and enjoyed it, the use of chocolate spread. Along the way, the bitter taste disappeared as Europeans began making their own versions adding cane sugar, cinnamon, and other spices and flavorings to the beverage, usually served hot.

The first known English recipe for chocolate called for sugar, long red pepper, cloves, aniseed, almonds, nuts, orange flower water, and, of course, cacao. “The hotter it is drunke, the better it is,” said the recipe’s author in 1652. Unaware of the Aztec custom of drinking it cool, the recipe said that “being cold it may doe harm.”⁽¹⁵⁾