About Chocolate | History

Many of the web-site readers have expressed an interest in knowing a little bit about the history of chocolate. I have compiled a brief history of chocolate that should give you some more information than you presently have. The information used is primarily provided through the Cocoa Barry Institute – a leader in chocolate development and research – particularly the French masters P. Bertrand and P. Marand. The institute is a part of Cocoa Barry, one of the major French manufacturers and an innovator in chocolate manufacturing and processing. As a result of a global company merger, the company is now named Barry-Callebaut.

The pre-Columbian history of chocolate is quite uncertain. It is known, however, that the cocoa tree originated in the river valleys of South America and was brought north into Mexico before the 7th century A.D. The tree was cultivated first by the Mayas, then the Aztecs and Toltecs. The seed of the cocoa tree contains a great deal of fat, and starch and protein and when eaten in quantity would have been an important food. The American natives valued it enough that the cocoa beans were used as a form of currency. In any event, legend said that before becoming a food of man, chocolate was a food of the gods – primarily Quetzalcoatl.

Christopher Columbus upon arriving in America and seeing the cocoa beans brought to him decided in his wisdom that the beans were nothing more than a vulgar bargaining tool and had no interest. Hernán Cortés discovered the future chocolate during his conquest of Mexico in 1519 when he was given the precious drink by Montezuma himself. The drink was unusual to his palate (as it contained a mixture of roasted and ground cocoa beans, red pepper, vanilla and water) but he found it quite refreshing. His rank and file soldiers did not share his enthusiasm considering the drink only good enough for pig swill. The local clergymen combated the bitter taste of the chocolate drink by adding sugar and vanilla to the drink. In 1528 Cortés made the first delivery of cocoa beans to Spain where it became extremely popular among the Spanish Nobility. Charles Quint granted Spain a monopoly on the production and sale chocolate; a monopoly kept for a century.

Resulting from the decline of the Spanish supremacy of the seas, chocolate spread across Europe. Appreciated as much for its aphrodisiacal and dietary properties as for its exotic taste, chocolate brought the European aristocracy to its knees. Around the mid-seventeenth century the English Jesuit Thomas Gage wrote about a situation in a Spanish city – Chiapa Real. The women insisted that their maids bring to them a cup of chocolate during Mass. The bishop, who disapproved of such disruptions, declared that the practice would cease on threat of excommunication. Most of the women openly challenged the bishop and many swords were drawn against the clergy. The situation came to an end when the bishop suddenly took ill and passed away. He and his physician suspected that he was poisoned with a carefully prepared cup of chocolate. (This no doubt was the first practical application of the phrase “to die for”.)

As chocolate spread throughout Europe, those nations cultivated their own plantations in their colonies. Cocoa production as well as sugar cane production rose dramatically. Just prior to the eighteenth century, the chocolate drink was sold not only to the nobility, but to the general public with chocolate sellers in the major cities in Europe and chocolate houses in London. With the spread of chocolate came the major chocolate technological advances:

1821 the Englishman Cadbury invented the first biteable chocolate;
1828 the Netherlander van Houston discovered cocoa powder;
1848 the English company Fry and Sons developed the first “eating chocolate”;
1875 Henri Nestlé invented powdered milk and his next door neighbour, Tobler, used this invention to master milk chocolate;
1875 Lindt invents the process of conching chocolate;
1923 the American Mars created the first chocolate bar.

An anonymous author of the Candy Maker (New York, 1878) summarized that due to the uncertainties of fashion, the eating of chocolate creams and caramels would go the way of taffy, gumdrops with cordial and brandy, cream-stuffed dates, and fig paste.

Whoever the author was, he was certainly wrong as annual cocoa production rose from115, 000 tonnes at the end of the nineteenth century to over 3,000,000 tonnes in recent times. The food of the gods has certainly become the food of man.

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