Chocolate, Straight from the Source
I used to think chocolate was a rich and sweet treat best enjoyed from fancy packages with European names. While by no means an expert, I thought I knew a thing or two about this dark and delicious food so many of us adore. However, after traveling directly to the source in Mexico and Central America, I now realize chocolate and cocoa is a much more interesting and diverse product, with a fascinating history.
Mayan Gold
The ancient Maya civilization that thrived in Mesoamerica more than a thousand years ago built impressive cities with unique architectural elements, developed advanced mathematics, and studied astronomy. Here, long before Europeans had ever seen or tasted chocolate, the Mayans harvested and consumed native cacao and exulted its taste and powerful properties. Even though they were surrounded by gold and silver, these “precious” metals were not considered important. Cocoa, on the other hand, was one of the prized items offered to the Gods and consumed during religious ceremonies and other special events. The neighboring Aztec civilization in the North learned of cocoa beans from the Mayans, and even used them as a form of currency.
Raw Cacao
During a guided hike through Central Guatemala, our guide ran off the trail to pick a large green fruit from a nearby tree. He brought this strange, rugby-ball shaped object back to us, telling us this was the fruit from a cacao tree. Next, he split open the pod with his hands, revealing the white and gooey pulp surrounding a large number of beans. We each reached in to grab one of the raw cacao beans, sucking the semi-sweet pulp surrounding it and biting gently on the seeds. The taste was very bitter and only barely recognizable as chocolate.
Processing into Chocolate
Cocoa beans require many steps of processing in order to be turned into chocolate. After harvesting the pods, the beans are removed, fermented for a few days, and dried by the farmers. These dried beans are then sent to chocolate factories, which roast and press the seeds to extract cocoa powder and cocoa butter. To produce chocolate, the powder, butter, and sugar are mixed together and refined. Additional ingredients such as vanilla or whole milk can also be added.
Traditional Local Chocolate
In Mexico and Central America it’s still easy to find a large number of different chocolate and cacao products, many of which are similar to the foods first enjoyed here thousands of years ago. Modern Mayan descendants often sell homemade chocolate produced by hand and without special machinery. This chocolate is slightly gritty and much less sweet than any mass-produced chocolate commonly available. Specialty chocolate shops can be found in towns and markets, offering wholesale dried cacao beans, powder, chocolate discs, and mole pastes. These are purchased and used in traditional preparations of drinking chocolate, sauces or fillings for meats and tamales, and many other dishes. Here, in the birthplace of chocolate, it is considered an important basic ingredient – not just a decadent snack or dessert.
Your thoughts…
How do you like to enjoy chocolate?
Calorie Count co-founder Erik Fantasia and his girlfriend, Heather Curtis, are currently traveling through Central America as part of a trip around the world. You can follow their adventures online at www.aroundthisworld.com
Comments
Yummmmm...... interesting. I did visit the Lindt chocolate factory in Switzerland.
Little did i know that real chocolate reduces blood cholesterol !!
It even fights tooth decay.
I have to say that it's time chocolate was discussed in this Blog.
Click here to " Discover some more benefits of chocolate"
Chocolate used to be my trigger food for sending me headlong off a diet. I now live in the "eye of the storm" -- having cultivated a taste for really high quality, really dark, chocolate. I have a small square of it almost every day -- my treat and quota. I also enjoy cocoa powder mixed into my yogurt (with Splenda to sweeten it,) so I am definitely doing my part to keep the cocoa farmers employed!
If you happen to travel around the Hershey, PA area, be sure to visit the Hershey Chocolate World tour. It's free and a great education on how those beans end up as confections.
Just yesterday I was wondering about that. I need to find a mild serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. hopefully, natural and a food! not a drug. I have worsening symptoms of PMS and only need it a few days a month. Hence chocolate cravings! And chocolate works! it's just that the form I'm usually consuming it in is ice cream or a bar. so I was hoping there was more or a raw form you could consume. Thanks!
If you love chocoate, but feel guilty when you indulge? then I highly recommend that you find out more about XOCAI -(sho si) this is healthy chocolate. I know it sounds like an oxymoron but it is true. This chocolate is has not been heated and processed and therefore all the nutrients that are in cocoa remain and it is actually the number 1 superfood in anti oxdients and flavinoids (once the cocoa is processed and heated, it is now a candy)
Need more info? then go to www.mxicorp.com
Karen
If you find you are craving chocolate and 'pms"ing most likely your body is telling you that your magnesium levels are depleted. increasing your magnesium with also reduce menstrual cramps.
I went to the Hershey factory in Pennsylvania a few years back, and loved it! One of the best things we did that trip was pay a little more and did the "Taste of Chocolate" event. It's similar to a wine tasting, only they give you samples of different types of chocolate and explain what makes them different. I learned so much from that. If you love chocolate but can't eat just a little bit of it as candy, try cocoa nibs--little bits of roasted cocoa beans that are easily chewed, very chocolatey without being sweet, and a little is pretty satisfying.
I eat chocolate almost daily... but never the crap you'd find in a Kit Kat or Mars bar. I love mixing unsweetened cocoa powder into my cottage cheese for a pudding like treat or I'll just gnaw at a square or two of unsweetened bakers chocolate.
So bitter and soo yummy.
I'm glad you posted this because it's very important how we consume the chocolate. I love chocolate bars, but the way it's prepared in oaxaca is incredibly good for our health
All I can say is yummy my grandmother uses it as one of the many ingredients in the traditionl mexican dish mole. I also love love dark chocolate.
Only a little and dark, dark, dark. Not a big thing for me. Also in a brownie about 2x a year.
This was very interesting! Thanks for the research.
Just FYI rukidngme...Ghirardelli has a unsweetened 60% cacao chocolate that works great for me...It's pretty easy to find...I keep a bag of the chips in the freezer and put a few on my yogurt in the am...
while you are all indulging in the luxury of chocolate, which is a relatively cheap commodity, please remember that South America only accounts for 7% of the world's chococolate production. The African nations are the largest suppliers to the large chocolate companies, and use child slave labour to harvest their crops. If you are going to indulge, try to eat the chocolate produced by cooperatives who do not use child slave labour!
I stir in some straight cocoa powder and cinamon into my coffee in the morning. Then there are the 20 grams of Lindt 85% in the afternoon.
Come to the dark side.
I have lots of food issues, etc., but I'm no chocoholic! I like milk chocolate well enough, but dark chocolate doesn't work for me. In the junk-food world, I'd take sour candy or my all-time, #1 favorite, potato chips anytime over anybody's chocolate.
What's really good is salted dark chocolate. Lindt makes a bar called "A Touch of Sea Salt" which is so delicious. It's not too dark though, and strangely creamy. IMO milk chocolate tastes delicious, but the bitterness you get from dark chocolate keeps you from over indulging! :) Dark chocolate's also a good afternoon or morning pick me up, it's not as sugary or fatty as milk chocolate and has all the energizing goodness of cocoa.
I do love chocolate as a treat. However, it does have an addictive quality that makes me want more.
LOVE LOVE LOVE Dark Chocolate... I cant eat it if its less than 70%... Love anything between 70% and 85%. I have it everyday. I usually eat 2 squares of 70% Lindt Swiss Dark Chocolate each night (20 grams = 100ish calories).
Interesting article. I've been snacking on Dark Chorolate covered Pomegranates and they always leave you wanting more. They are hard to put down. It would be nice to find a chocolate that left you satisfied after eating it. I think the "Touch of Sea Salt" sounds like my kind of bar.
I am a chocolate addict. I try to eat more dark chocolate than milk chocolate for its antioxidants benefits.
ooh- power of suggestion.... where did I put that bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate??!!
Chocolate has some benefits... protein, antioxidants, etc. Be aware that the dutch alkali processing method reduces the antioxidant content however. It is harder to find differently processing chocolate, but possible at Vita Health and other similar stores.
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I grew up on cheap chocolate and really don't like the dark stuff too bitter but my daughter who has much better taste than me loves dark chocolate
love Lindt milk chocolate but can only take so much it upsets my tummy