Dun dun dun…. More of the history of chocolate from my upcoming book, “The Hollywood Chocoholics Diet.”
-The Chocolate Wizard
By the second half of the 16th century, the Spanish in the New World had taken to calling the drink “chocolatl”, which transitioned into today’s pronunciation. Why the Spanish moved from the early name cacahuatl to chocolatl is not at all clear, however, some historians speculate indeed that the prefix “caca” made the Spanish uncomfortable. (“Caca” in fact does mean feces in Latin and most Romance languages).
Chocolate began gaining the attention of nobility in other European countries through means such as visitors and cross-border marriages. Religious orders active in the New World also contributed to the spread of chocolate through Europe. Eventually, some traitorous Spanish CHOCOHOLIC let the secret of preparation slip and the drink spread quickly to other countries. One story is that Spanish monks processing the cocoa beans finally let the secret out. Whomever the culprit, it didn’t take long before chocolate addiction spread throughout Europe. As with many addictive substances, it was praised early and often by adherents as a delicious, medicinal, health-giving food.[1] Although exact attribution for introduction is difficult to assign, by the late 1600’s, courts in Italy were drinking chocolate with relish and concocting various flavored recipes such as the famous jasmine chocolate of Cosimo III de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
In France, there is documentary reference of chocolate being introduced by clergy perhaps as early as the mid-1600’s. The court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, at Versailles was hooked on chocolate, due no doubt in large part to his marriage to the chocolate drinking Maria Theresa of Spain. Chocolate reigned as the drink at the fashionable Court of France until Maria Theresa died and was succeeded by a more puritanical, second wife queen.[2]
Apparently not content to see his countrymen suffer through another addiction while the English slacked off, a Frenchman opened the first hot chocolate shop in London in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s.[3] In the 1700’s in England, hot chocolate drink establishments were as prominent as Starbucks coffee shops are today.[4] Chocolate houses became fashionable hangouts for the privileged class and in particular for politicians, with various parties staking out their turf at a favorite house.
Praised as a medicinal, chocolate also gained a substantial reputation as an aphrodisiac during these times. No less a personage than Casanova was reputed to combine champagne with chocolate to seduce the ladies. Madame du Barry, an elite French socialite with a nymphomaniac’s reputation, encouraged her lovers to drink chocolate to better keep up with her appetites. Chocolate drinking also had its dark side. Deemed an excellent beverage with which to disguise poison, chocolate was allegedly used in many famous poisonings, including celebrity situations involving the chocolate loving Marquis de Sade (the alleged poisonings are deemed exaggerations by many historians) and the mysterious death of Pope Clement XIV in 1774, who expired after drinking a cup of chocolate.
By the turn of the century, chocolate had made it into Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Europe was conquered and it didn’t take long for chocolate to travel to the American colonies. Chocolate made its colonial appearance in the early 1700’s and in 1765 a chocolate factory opened in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That original factory became the famous Walter Baker Chocolate Company which is still in business today.
Over the next 100 years or so, enterprising CHOCOHOLICS with inventor genes refined chocolate production techniques and brought about the birth of modern chocolate and the availability of chocolate to the mass public. Standout CHOCOHOLIC inventors included Conrad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, who invented a cocoa press in the early 1800’s that enabled candy makers to make chocolate candy by mixing cocoa butter with finely ground sugar. There were also inventors from the dark side, such as the infamous Daniel Peter, a Swiss candy maker who developed milk chocolate by adding condensed milk to chocolate liquor – the non-alcoholic by-product of the cocoa bean’s inner meat.
True chocolate connoisseurs regard milk chocolate similar to how diamond enthusiasts view cubic zirconium, e.g., mere fodder for the masses. Swiss candy makers also gave chocolate a smoother texture through a process called “conching.” The word “conching”, as if anyone cares, was apparently derived from a Greek word meaning “sea shell”. The theory is that the shape of the mixing vats where particles in the chocolate mixture were reduced to a fine texture looked like conch shells. This theory sounds suspect; if historians can’t agree on the Aztec word for chocolate, the linguistic roots of ‘conching’ should be questioned more closely.
As CHOCOHOLIC inventors introduced advancements in Chocolatology (the science of chocolate)[5], factories and mass production of chocolate products started to compete with individual candy makers. Steam engines took over the job of cocoa bean grinding and mass production techniques dropped the price of chocolate within reach of the masses. And Moses came down from the mountain.
[1] Tobacco, cocaine and opium enjoyed similar early endorsements from celebrity users in a tradition that has continued to present times with stars like Jimi Hendrix, Robert Downey, Jr., John Belushi and Chevy Chase.
[2] Celebrity second marriages usually get wilder, not more sedate. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee for example.
[3] Historians differ on the date but they seem to agree that it was a Frenchman that revolutionized English taste buds with respect to chocolate. Not the first or the last time the French improved English cuisine.
[4] On a per capita basis. The rapid popularity is not so surprising when you consider that previous to the introduction of chocolate, rancid mince meat pie sprinkled with sugar pretty much ruled in England as dessert du jour.
[5] Ok, I made it up. But it sounds scientific and official.