News, Chocolate used more than 3,000 years ago. (ancient, Mexico, Washington)
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WASHINGTON - Residents of Central America were enjoying chocolate drinks more than 3,000 years ago, a half millennium earlier than previously thought, new research shows.
Chocolate used more than 3,000 years ago - Yahoo! News (broken link)
There's a museum of chocolate only a few miles from where I live (yes, I do feel lucky ) and they have the type of chocolate that they used to drink all those thousands of years ago in little cups for you to try. It's nice but my goodness it's bitter! It's not just like melting down a modern choccy bar as I'd have imagined.
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I thought it would be nice to say that the original nahuatl word for Chocolate was.
Xocoatl (pronounced sho-co-at-l)
For the Mexicas it was a beverage so holy that it was offered to the gods, they didn't drink it, that's why when spaniards conquered Mexico they felt like gods themselves for drinking it.
The original xocoatl beverage was made of cacau and water, milk was added later because there weren't cows in the new world until the spaniards introduced them.
cacau or cocoa was also used as currency for some prehispanic civilizations.
For many millennia Cacao grew in the understory of the tropical rainforest the northern Amazon basin. Together with the plethora of plants, animals and insects of the rainforest, it thrived in the shade on the forest floor and lived on the nutrients and water passed down from the canopy above.
The history of this this popular plant's use is somewhat clouded by numerous wildly conflicting stories. The myths, legends, propaganda and inaccuracies in the history of Chocolate are profound. Especially suspect are the manufacturers websites!! I have tried to discard the sloppy and biased stories that are clearly inaccurate, but that still leaves some questions!
Cacao has been a cultivated crop for at least 3,000 years, probably quite a bit more. Before that it is certain that the seeds of wild Cacao trees were gathered. Initially a few Cacao trees would be planted just inside the heavy rainforest, mixed with both wild and cultivated understory plants. Eventually that grew to more specific plots of Cacao, still under the canopy and within the rainforest.
The people who first utilized Cacao were the inhabitants of what is now Venezuela in northwestern South America, where the tree is native. I strongly suspect that they created Cacao as we know it, just as the Inca created the potato using their rather advanced genetic technology. (Most high production food plants, certainly including Potatoes, Squash, Maize (corn) and Bananas, were engineered over many generations by the natives of their respective areas to produce large and plentiful fruit.) The Olmec Civilization (3500 to 2500 years ago) consumed the beverage and it was used to fortify soldiers during marches and in battle.
The Aztecs called the drink, and apparently the bean as well, Xocoatl. From this word comes the pan-European word Chocolate. (I have seen a reference of questionable dependability which suggested that "xocoatl" meant "foam in water", and therefore referred to the drink, not the plant.)The word Cacao comes from comes from the Mayan word for the plant was "Cacau". Because of a spelling error, probably by English traders long ago, these beans became known as Cocoa beans.
The civilizations of the American Southwest traded with the Aztecs and Maya, so it shouldn't be surprising that cacao came along on the trade network along with parrot feathers, ritual objects, and even the crafts of weaving and pottery-making.
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) and they have the type of chocolate that they used to drink all those thousands of years ago in little cups for you to try. It's nice but my goodness it's bitter! It's not just like melting down a modern choccy bar as I'd have imagined.
