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| An Age-Old Obsession
A Brief History of Chocolate
* Confectionery history has a record of at least 4,000 years, when Egyptians displayed
their pleasures on papyrus. Sweetmeats were being sold in the marketplace in 1566 BC.
Yet chocolate didn't appear on the scene until the ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures
discovered the value of the cacao plant. It is reputed to have originated in the Amazon
or Orinoco basin.
* In 600 A.D. the Mayans migrated into the northern regions of South America,
establishing the earliest known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan. It has been argued that
the Mayans had been familiar with cocoa several centuries prior to this date. They
considered it a valuable commodity, used both as a means of payment and as units of
calculation.
* Mayans and Aztecs took beans from the "cacao" tree and made a drink they called
"xocoatl." Aztec Indian legend held that cacao seeds had been brought from Paradise and
that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the cacao tree.
* Ancient chronicles report that the Aztecs, believing that the god Quetzalcoatl traveled
to earth on a beam of the Morning Star with a cacao tree from Paradise, took his offering
to the people. They learned from Quetzalcoatl how to roast and grind the cacao seeds,
making a nourishing paste that could be dissolved in water. They added spices and
called this drink "chocolatl," or bitter-water, and believed it brought universal wisdom
and knowledge.
* The word "chocolate" is said to derive from the Mayan "xocoatl"; cocoa from the Aztec
"cacahuatl." The Mexican Indian word "chocolate" comes from a combination of the
terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water"); early chocolate was only consumed in beverage
form. As part of a ritual in twelfth-century Mesoamerican marriages, a mug of the
frothy chocolate was shared.
* Arthur W. Knapp, author of The Cocoa and Chocolate Industry (Pitman, 1923) points
out that if we believe Mexican mythology, "chocolate was consumed by the Gods in
Paradise, and the seed of cocoa was conveyed to man as a special blessing by the God of
the Air."
* Ancient Mexicans believed that Tonacatecutli, the goddess of food, and
Calchiuhtlucue, the goddess of water, were guardian goddesses of cocoa. Each year they
performed human sacrifices for the goddesses, giving the victim cocoa at his last meal.
* Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) was dissatisfied with the word
"cocoa," so renamed it "theobroma," Greek for "food of the gods."
* Christopher Columbus is said to have brought back cacao beans to King Ferdinand
from his fourth visit to the New World, but they were overlooked in favor of the many
other treasures he had found.
* Chocolate was first noted in 1519 when Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez visited the
court of Emperor Montezuma of Mexico. American historian William Hickling's
History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma "took no other
beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices,
and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually
dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his
"chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an
aphrodisiac.
* In 1528 Cortez brought chocolate back from Mexico to the royal court of King Charles
V. Monks, hidden away in Spanish monasteries, processed the cocoa beans and kept
chocolate a secret for nearly a century. It made a profitable industry for Spain, which
planted cocoa trees in its overseas colonies.
* It took an Italian traveler, Antonio Carletti, to discover the chocolate treasure in 1606
and take it into other parts of Europe.
* "With the decline of Spain as a power, the secret of cacao leaked out at last, and the
Spanish Crown's monopoly of the chocolate trade came to an end. In a few years the
knowledge of it had spread through France, Italy, Germany, and England." (The Nestle
Company, Inc., White Plains, New York, The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 2.)
* When the Spanish Princess Maria Theresa was betrothed to Louis XIV of France in
1615, she gave her fiancé an engagement gift of chocolate, packaged in an elegantly
ornate chest. Their marriage was symbolic of the marriage of chocolate in the Spanish-
Franco culture.
* The first chocolate house was reputedly opened in London in 1657 by a Frenchman.
Costing 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate was considered a beverage for the elite
class. Sixteenth-century Spanish historian Oviedo noted: "None but the rich and noble
could afford to drink chocolatl as it was literally drinking money. Cocoa passed currency
as money among all nations; thus a rabbit in Nicaragua sold for 10 cocoa nibs, and 100 of
these seeds could buy a tolerably good slave."
* Chocolate also appears to have been used as a medicinal remedy by leading physicians
of the day. Christopher Ludwig Hoffmann's treatise Potus Chocolate recommends
chocolate for many diseases, citing it as a cure for Cardinal Richelieu's ills.
* Chocolate traveled to the Low Countries with the Duke of Alba. By 1730, it had
dropped in price from $3 per lb to being within the financial reach of those other than
the very wealthy. The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 helped further to cut prices
and improve the quality of chocolate by squeezing out some of the cocoa butter and
giving the beverage a smoother consistency.
* With the Industrial Revolution came the mass production of chocolate, spreading its
popularity among the citizenry.
* Discussing the introduction of coffee, tea, and cocoa into Europe, Isaac Disraeli (1791-
1834) wrote in his six-volume Curiosities of Literature: "Chocolate the Spaniards
brought from Mexico, where it was denominated chocolatl. It was a coarse mixture of
ground cacao and Indian corn with roucou; but the Spaniards, liking its nourishment,
improved it into a richer compound with sugar, vanilla and other aromatics. We had
Chocolate houses in London long after coffee houses; they seemed to have associated
something more elegant and refined in their new form when the other had become
common."
* Prince Albert's Exposition in 1851 in London was the first time the United States was
introduced to bonbons, chocolate creams, hand candies (called "boiled sweets"), and
caramels.
* An 1891 publication on The Chocolate-Plant by Walter Baker a Co. records that, "At
the discovery of America, the natives of the narrower portion of the continent
bordering on the Caribbean Sea were found in possession of two luxuries which have
been every where recognized as worthy of extensive cultivation; namely, tobacco and
chocolate."
* Chocolate was introduced to the United States in 1765 when John Hanan brought
cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts, to refine them with
the help of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate factory in the country was established
there.
* Yet, chocolate wasn't really accepted by the American colonists until fishermen from
Gloucester, Massachusetts, accepted cocoa beans as payment for cargo in tropical
America.
* Where chocolate was mostly considered a beverage for centuries, and predominantly
for men, it became recognized as an appropriate drink for children in the seventeenth
century. It had many different additions: milk, wine, beer, sweeteners, and spices. Dri
nking chocolate was considered a very fashionable social event.
* Eating chocolate was introduced in 1674 in the form of rolls and cakes, served in the
various chocolate emporiums.
* In 1747 Frederick the Great issued an edict forbidding the hawking of chocolate.
* By 1795, Dr. Joseph Fry of Bristol, England, employed a steam engine for grinding cocoa
beans, an invention that led to the manufacture of chocolate on a large scale.
*Around 1847, Fry & Sons sold a "Chocolat Delicieux a Manger," which is thought to be
the first chocolate bar for eating.
* Nestle (The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 3) declares that from 1800 to the present
day, these four factors contributed to chocolate's "coming of age" as a worldwide food
product:
1.The introduction of cocoa powder in 1828;
2.The reduction of excise duties;
3.Improvements in transportation facilities, from plantation to factory;
4.The invention of eating chocolate, and improvements in manufacturing methods.
* By the year 1810, Venezuela was producing half the world's requirements for cocoa,
and one-third of all the cocoa produced in the world was being consumed by the
Spaniards.
* The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 by C.J. Van Houten, a Dutch chocolate master,
helped reduce the price of chocolate and bring it to the masses. By squeezing out cocoa
butter from the beans, Van Houten's "dutching" was an alkalizing process.
* In his 1923 volume The Cocoa and Chocolate Industry, Arthur W. Knapp attributes
the rise in popularity of cocoa to these innovations:
1.The introduction by Van Houten of cocoa powder as we now know it.
2.The reduction of the duty to a low figure which remained constant for a number of
years.
3.The great improvements that have taken place in the methods of transport.
4.Improvements in the manufacture of eating chocolate.
* Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, experimented for eight years before finally
inventing a means of making milk chocolate for eating in 1876. He brought his creation
to a Swiss firm that today is the world's largest producer of chocolate: Nestle.
* In 1879 Rodolphe Lindt of Berne, Switzerland, produced chocolate that melted on the
tongue. He invented "conching," a means of heating and rolling chocolate to refine it.
After chocolate had been conched for 72 hours and had more cocoa butter added to it,
the original "fondant" was created.
* Cadbury Brothers displayed eating chocolate in 1849 at an exhibition in Bingley Hall at
Birmingham, England.
* Swiss confiseur Jules Sechaud of Montreux introduced a process for manufacturing
filled chocolates in 1913.
* The New York Cocoa Exchange, located at the World Trade Center, was begun October
1, 1925, so that buyers and sellers could get together for transactions.
* Brazil and the Ivory Coast are leaders in the cocoa bean belt, accounting for nearly half
of the world's cocoa.
* While the United States leads the world in cocoa bean importation and chocolate
production, Switzerland continues as the leader in per capita chocolate consumption.
* In 1980 a story of chocolate espionage hit the world press when an apprentice of the
Swiss company of Suchard-Tobler unsuccessfully attempted to sell secret chocolate
recipes to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.
* By the 1990s, chocolate had proven its popularity as a product, and its success as a big
business. Annual world consumption of cocoa beans averages approximately 600,000
tons, and per capita chocolate consumption is greatly on the rise. Chocolate manufact
uring in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry. According to Norman
Kolpas (1978, p. 106),
"We have seen how chocolate progressed from a primitive drink and food of ancient
Latin American tribes -- a part of their religious, commerce and social life -- to a drink
favored by the elite of European society and gradually improved until it was in
comparably drinkable and, later, superbly edible. We have also followed its complex
transformation from the closely packed seeds of the fruit of an exotic tree to a wide
variety of carefully manufactured cocoa and chocolate products. Beyond the historical,
agricultural and commercial, and culinary sides to chocolate, others: affect on our health
and beauty, and inspiration to literature and the arts."
webmaster@godiva.com
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 Chocolate’s Roots in Ancient Mesoamerica
We tend to think of chocolate as a sweet candy created during modern times. But actually, chocolate dates back to the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica who drank chocolate as a bitter beverage.
For these people, chocolate wasn’t just a favorite food—it also played an important role in their religious and social lives.
The ancient Maya grew cacao and made it into a beverage.
The first people clearly known to have discovered the secret of cacao were the Classic Period Maya (250-900 C.E. [A.D.]). The Maya and their ancestors in Mesoamerica took the tree from the rainforest and grew it in their own backyards, where they harvested, fermented, roasted, and ground the seeds into a paste.
When mixed with water, chile peppers, cornmeal, and other ingredients, this paste made a frothy, spicy chocolate drink.
 The Aztecs adopted cacao.
By 1400, the Aztec empire dominated a sizeable segment of Mesoamerica. The Aztecs traded with Maya and other peoples for cacao and often required that citizens and conquered peoples pay their tribute in cacao seeds—a form of Aztec money.
Like the earlier Maya, the Aztecs also consumed their bitter chocolate drink seasoned with spices—sugar was an agricultural product unavailable to the ancient Mesoamericans.
Drinking chocolate was an important part of Maya and Aztec life.
Many people in Classic Period Maya society could drink chocolate at least on occasion, although it was a particularly favored beverage for royalty. But in Aztec society, primarily rulers, priests, decorated soldiers, and honored merchants could partake of this sacred brew.
Chocolate also played a special role in both Maya and Aztec royal and religious events. Priests presented cacao seeds as offerings to the gods and served chocolate drinks during sacred ceremonies.
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| Single’s should be able to adopt children because it is more common these days
anyways. In today’s society there are more children growing up raised by single parents
and they turn out perfectly fine. Being a single and wanting to adopt a child could be very
beneficial to the child too. The single parent will then be devoted to the adopted child
because choosing the adopted child makes it even more special. Singles should be able to
adopt.
In addition when a single person adopts the child there is one less child in the
need of a home. Shy deny a child a perfectly fine parent just because the parent chooses
to be a single parent. The child would be loved twice as much because of these reasons
first the child was chosen. Second they would have the sole attention of a single parent.
Third the child would no longer have to be in a foster care or a group home. The child
would be more than happy to live in a stable home single or couple.
Some people might say that a single adoptee parent would not be as responsible,
but a single adoptee parent would be as responsible as a couple. A single parent can play
the role of two. It is no different than a single parent who has given birth to their own. If a
single adoptee parent would like to adopt they should be able to manage a good job and
time for the child which most do.
Future more single parents are so common these days. Their probably would be a
problem in like the 60’s but now things are different. A lot of people want to be
independent and if independence to them is being a single parent so be it. It only takes
one person to love a child especially a child in need of a home and parent. Why be greedy
and say that a single person cannot adopt a child in need of a home and family. A single
person would probably want to adopt a child because they want someone to love and take
care of. That is exactly what the adopted child would want. Adopted children would like
to have someone to love and have a sense of stability.
Therefore single’s should be able to adopt children because when it comes down
to it it’s all about love and stability. It would also help out the system there would be less
children in need of homes. | | |
| Anorexia nervosa is self starvation. It is an illness that affects many teenage girls
and in some cases teenage guys as well. People with anorexia are obsessed with being
thin. They lose lots of weight trying to become thin because of the fear of gaining weight
even in reality they are thin. They have distorted perceptions of their body weight, size,
and shape. Most of anorexics also strive for perfection and with the media thinking “thin
is in” these girls are becoming walking skeletons.
The fear of gaining weight to an anorexic can take over their lives. They feel
society would cast them out if they were to gain weight. Anorexics restrict food from
their diets and follow strict rules based on their eating habits. To an anorexic losing
weight is a big achievement and can be used as a high. People with anorexia often are in
a delusional state of mind thinking they are fat, but in reality they are very thin
In addition anorexics often have distorted perceptions of their body weight, size
and shape. Some anorexics strive to keep up with fictional media ideal body shapes.
Some feel fat all over when in reality they are very thin. Their self-worth is based on their
body size and shape. They deny that their low body weight is a serious concern.
More over anorexics also strive for perfection. They set high standards for
themselves. They have high standards and like to take control of what happens around
them. If they can not control something else they know they can control what they do eat
or what they don’t eat. They also believe that being thin will help them be more
successful at what ever they do wither it is sports or a job.
Anorexics often think thin is the answer to all their problems. Anorexics often
believe that thin brings them confidence, attention, and activity into their lives. What they
are actually feeling is a false confidence. Anorexia is a serious illness that can lead to
death. Anorexia is not only a problem with food and weight. it is an attempt to use food
and weight to deal with emotional problems.
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| so...i haven't been up to much, just enjoying the RAIN.
Yesterday i went to a birthday party. it was for my sisters daughter, she's my lil model. my brother in-laws family was there too and this time for some reason everyone got along. we were all playing games together, actually. it was the best party that i have been to in a long time. the only weird thing that i wasn't feeling was when we were saying bye and giving hugs and stuff my brother-in-laws uncle-in-law gave me this really weird kiss and i was like WHA.............omg. yeah gross huh.
yeah oh and someone (tim) emailed me and it made me happy.
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