An Ode To a Late Night Temptation-The World of Chocolates

Chocolates are like the closest of friends -be it during a mid morning laziness, a necessary dose of adrenaline at work or a late night bout of sadness,chocolates give me a succor and a love 24×7 round the year.On this International Chocolate Day, I thought of looking back to the evolution of modern day gooey chocolate and its varied use from a very modest beginning of a simple cacao bean. Chocolates have become synonymous with so many emotions of life-love,friendship,making up after a tiff, in a sense chocolates build relationships.They create and seldom destroy.

Made from the astringent ,bitter seeds of a tropical tree,chocolates has an unique consistency-hard and dry at room temperature ,melting and creamy in the warmth of the mouth.Sculpted into almost any shape, with a flavor which is versatile and unique, chocolate which we know and love existed only fora tiny fraction of chocolate’s full history.The story of chocolate begins in the New World,with the cacao tree, which evolved in the river valleys of equatorial South America.The first people to cultivate the trees were the Olmecs of the southern coast of Mexico.Introduced in Maya in 600 BC, it was traded to the Aztecs in the cool and arid north.The Aztecs roasted and ground cacao seeds and made them into a drink served in religious ceremonies.The first Europeans who saw the cacao beans were the crew of Columbus’s brought some beans back to Spain.One of the first detailed accounts of the original chocolate comes from the History of the New World (1564) by the Milanese Girolamo Benzoni who travelled to Central America.He wrote that the region had made two unique contributions to the world-Indian fowls and cavacate or the cacao bean.

Etymologically the word chocolate has a complicated lineage.The Aztec word for cocoa water was cacahuatl but the early Spanish coined chocolate for themselves.The Europeans added their own flavorings like sugar, cinnamon, cloves,anise,almonds,vanilla,orange water.According to English Jesuit Thomas Gae, the cocoa beans were dried and ground with spices,heated to melt the cocoa butter and form a paste.Then they scrapped the paste onto a large leaf, allowed it to solidify and then peeled it off as a large tablet. The first European factories for making the spiced chocolate paste were built in Spain around 1580 and within 70 years chocolate found its way into Italy, France and England.By the late 17th century chocolate houses were thriving in London as a kind of specialty coffeehouse.

Henry Stubbe in his treatise on chocolate, The Indian Nectar(1662) wrote about chocolate lozenges in Spain. Cookbooks of the 18th century include a handful of recipes that needed chocolate like marzipan and biscuits,ices and mousses. French Encyclopedie wrote about half cocoa, half-sugar cake flavored with some vanilla and cinnamon -eaten with a cup of water.Even in the middle of the 19th century Gunter’s Modern confectioner devoted only 4 pages out of 220 to chocolate recipes.

For a couple of centuries ,Europe knew chocolate almost exclusively as a beverage.Chocolate was ‘the’ drink of the European aristocracies – no upper-class home was complete without chocolate making and drinking. But things started to change in 1828 when Coenraad van Houten from Amsterdam changed the game. He invented the ‘cocoa press’, which could separate the fat from a cacao bean, leaving behind a fine powder.This powder was much more tasty to enjoy as a drink, and people started adding milk to it instead of water, making it more like the hot chocolate we’d drink today. This method also meant chocolate could be mass-produced, which made it cheaper and so the wider public could buy and enjoy it. Some called this the democratization of chocolate.

In 1847 British chocolatier J.S. Fry and Sons had the novel idea of recombining the fat and liquor, and adding sugar. He set this in moulds and chocolate bar was born.The next big episode in the chocolate saga came when Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter put powdered milk in the mix, creating the world’s first milk chocolate bar. In America, chocolate was so valued during the Revolutionary War that it was included in soldiers’ rations and used in lieu of wages. While most of us probably wouldn’t settle for a chocolate paycheck these days, statistics show that the humble cacao bean is still a powerful economic force.
By 1917 Alice Bradley’s Candy Cook Book devoted an entire chapter to assorted chocolates pointing to the fact that the South american bean had come of age asa major ingredient in confectionery. In 1876 a Swiss confectioner Daniel Peter used the new dried milk powder to make the first solid milk chocolate.In 1878,Rudolph Lindt invented the Conche, a machine which ground cacao beans,sugar and milk powder slowly for hours to develop a fine consistency.Till date Switzerland’s per capita consumption of chocolate is about double that of United States.

Some Facts-

The inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, Ruth Wakefield, reportedly sold the recipe to Nestlé for $1 only.

White chocolate isn’t actually chocolate, because it doesn’t contain cocoa solids. Sorry.

The largest chocolate bar in the world weighed in at 5792.5 kg. Thornton’s made it for their 100th birthday.

The largest chocolate bar in the world weighed in at 5792.5 kg. Thornton’s made it for their 100th birthday.

The phrase ‘death by chocolate’ could have applied to Winston Churchill- during World War 2, the Nazis plotted to assassinate him using an exploding bar of chocolate.

The range of chocolates is wide and varied now-from the simple milk chocolate to various artisanal chocolates to handmade ones, one is spoiled for a choice.Magical,perfect,endearing, forever chocolates are for one and all.To me chocolate saves me from my late night hunger pangs after a day of dieting. My refrigerator is never short of a mildly flavoured orange dark chocolate.One piece and you know sleep is not far way.Chocolate stocks are always replenished in my house-it may be a luxurious Toblerone or a out of the budget Lindt Chocolate for extra grey days or even a humble bar of Amul Fruit and Nut or at least the colorful sugar coated childhood favourite Gems.Even at work when hours of looking at the screen with statistics of students and results one is dead tired there are instant saviors.Friend and colleague Anupama is always their with a bar of happiness and energy.

Let chocolates remain evergreen,let it take the place of sleeping pills and life coaches.Ring in happiness and shun out clouds from life.Have a chocolate with a smile.