Chris the Chocolate
We just wrapped up our first unit for Food For Thought, which is my humanities class. We have learned how food is more than just an ingredient. How humans have been able to change the food industry. From genetically modifying foods to being able to grow crops that are not native. For this Action Project, we had to choose an ingredient that is used in a family recipe. I have chosen chocolate, which is used to make Mole. Mole is a Mexican dish that is made with chocolate. Mole dates back to the Aztecs, they called it Mōlli and they made it using turkey instead of chicken.
Script
Hi, my name is Chris and I am a Chocolate, I am bitter and sweet. I am made from Cacao seeds, you may call them Cacao beans. These seeds are native to the Amazon rain forest. Where they grow up to 20-25 feet tall. Cacao pods can hold up to 50 seeds - this is enough to make seven milk chocolate bars and two dark chocolate bars.
If you don't know what Cacao is, let me give you a couple of facts about it.
Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree that are roasted, husked, and ground. Then they are sweetened with sugar and flavored with vanilla.
Cacao vs. cocoa – Cacao refers to the tree where chocolate products are obtained. Cocoa is a beverage.
Roasting the seeds gives them that chocolate flavor we all know. Beans are roasted at 250-300° F
My journey begins on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico. around 1900 BC (according to scientists). Here I was used in many things, such as a delicious drink, medicine, and much more. In Aztec culture, chocolate was often associated with Quetzalcoatl. He was cast away by the other gods for sharing chocolate with humans. It was here, during these times that I was added to Mole. I was part of a recipe, a recipe that would be passed down from generation to generation. Then someone came along.
This, someone, was Christopher Columbus. He is said to have stolen a canoe filled with cocoa and taken it back to Spain. From there some old Spanish Friars introduced me to the court. They loved me!! I became really popular with the court. Then the Spanish took over Mexico and started to import more and more seeds. Then I somehow made my way to Austria where Pope Alexander VII declared that religious fasts are not broken if you consume chocolate.
The popularity that chocolate created in Europe was crazy! But, this craze over chocolate also brought along a slave market. Plantations spread, as the English, Dutch, and French colonized new places. With the depletion of Mesoamericans, which was mostly caused by disease, the work was made by poor wage laborers and African slaves. Wind-powered and horse-drawn mills were used to speed the production of chocolate, augmenting human labor. Heating the working areas of the table mill, an innovation that emerged in France in 1732, also assisted in the extraction of chocolate.
Then a Dutch chemist started adding alkaline salts to chocolate to take away the bitterness from the chocolate. 5 years later, he created a machine that takes away half the fat from chocolate. This invention made production both cheaper and consistent.
Then the U.S. decided to join in on the fun, in 1765, two men started a chocolate company, the company is called The Baker Chocolate Company. They used Cocoa seeds from the West Indies. The company was so successful that it is still in business!
Loo, John. “Dark Chocolate Blanxart.jpg - Wikimedia Commons.” File:Dark Chocolate Blanxart.jpg, Flickr, 10 Aug. 2007, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dark_chocolate_Blanxart.jpg.
“History of Chocolate.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Dec. 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/history-of-chocolate.Powes, Terry. “Oldest Chocolate in the New World.” Antiquity Journal, 11 Jan. 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20110628175643/http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/powis/index.html.
