Rich pickings

SUE LAWRENCE GETS CARRIED AWAY WITH THE SHEER INDULGENCE OF COOKING WITH CHOCOLATE

Before we unwrap the packaging and indulge in a feast of chocolate, here are a few facts. Did you know that it takes the harvest of one cocoa tree to make about 20 bars of chocolate? Or that the Aztecs used cocoa beans as money and also ground them up to make a drink, flavoured with chilli, cinnamon, maize meal and water? And when Cortez arrived at the court of Montezuma in 1519, that he and his men were served this drink – ‘xocolatl' – in sumptuous goblets of pure gold? Renowned as an aphrodisiac at the time (so what's new?), Montezuma used to fortify himself with jugs of the brew before retiring to his harem.

The rest, as they say, is history: the drink was introduced to Spain where they added sugar and vanilla, and, after a century of keeping it a closely guarded secret, the Spaniards introduced it to France and Italy, and then England, where its taste was improved by the addition of milk. After the Dutchman Van Houten invented a press to extract cocoa butter from cocoa liquor in 1828, giving us cocoa as we know it today, the English Quaker families (Fry, Rowntree, Cadbury, Terry) opted to produce chocolate as a nourishing drink, to provide a healthier alternative to gin.

The first eating chocolate appeared around 1847, and since then our annual consumption in Britain has increased to a healthy 8 – 10 kilos per person; healthy, that is, compared to gin. It was in the 1890s that the Hershey company was established in the US. Frank Mars set up business in Minnesota...

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• By : Sue Lawrence
• In : Food
• Issue : 8
• Page : 62
• Words : 1,007