Food of the Gods? The Story of Chocolate

Whether for Mother’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day, Easter, or just because it’s cold – or hot – there is always a good reason to enjoy chocolate. But did you know that cacao beans, the vital ingredient of all chocolate, were once used as currency, and that it was considered to be a gift from the gods?

Dark and strong, or creamy and smooth, chocolate is both an everyday pick-me-up, and a celebratory gift, but the story of chocolate goes back at least 4,000 years, and the first chocolate wasn’t sweet at all.

 

From the tree of paradise

Journeying to Central and South America, and back in time, the Aztecs, Mayans and Olmecs had discovered how to cultivate the cacao tree, using its beans as local currency, as well as offerings to their gods. Our word “chocolate” comes from the ancient Aztec language, Nahuatl, where “xocolatl” actually translates as “bitter water”. Fermenting, roasting and grinding the beans, the Maya made it into a drink by adding spices, vanilla and the occasional dash of pepper. Foam was created by pouring it from cup to cup at a height, and the resulting drink was prized in ceremonies, including to mark significant occasions such as new births.

 

The Toltecs, who preceded the Aztecs in what is now Mexico, called the cacao “the tree of paradise”. Their favourite deity, Quetzalcóatl, it was said, had brought maize to the people, and had also stolen cacao plants from the gods themselves to gift to humanity. Chocolate was also used in medicine, which is hardly surprising when you discover that dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants, can boost blood flow, stimulate endorphins, and give you extra energy – all of which also accounts for chocolate’s reputation as an aphrodisiac too.

Just add sugar

It wasn’t until Christopher Columbus first made his way to the Americas that chocolate came to European attention, and history records that the famous explorer didn’t like his first taste of the dark drink. It was another navigator, the Spaniard, Hernan Cortes, who first brought the beans home to the King of Spain, but Europeans remained sceptical. In 1575, the Italian merchant Girolamo Benzoni, who spent fifteen years in the Americas, wrote that “it seemed more a drink for pigs”. Apparently, in the absence of wine, he finally acquired a taste for it.

It was the Spanish who had the genius idea of adding sugar, and by the early 1600s, chocolate was a sensation among the royalty of Continental Europe. King Louis XIV and Marie-Anne of Austria popularised chocolate drinking in France, again claiming its aphrodisiac powers, but it took the English a little longer to catch on to the craze. One story relates that when English pirates took a Spanish ship in 1579, they thought the cargo of cocoa beans were sheep droppings, and set fire to the lot.

 

Politics and promiscuity

Chocolate bars wouldn’t be invented until the mid 1800s, but by the Georgian period chocolate was fashionable amongst the wealthy of both Britain and Ireland, and chocolate would be drunk from small bowls and dishes, rather than cups in the fashionable drawing rooms of the era, often with a shot of brandy for added kick. And with that, the lure of chocolate spread. Chocolate Houses popped up. The first opened in London in 1657, and men would gather and talk politics over hot chocolate – and they didn’t necessarily confine themselves to politics. Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe warned fathers to keep their daughters from the “promiscuous conversations that take place in chocolate houses”.

This didn’t stop women from enjoying the drink, and chocolate would have been drunk in the drawing rooms of The Merrion in their Georgian heyday. These days,  Merrion Pastry Chef Paul Kelly crafts seasonal chocolate treats year round, from eggs at Easter to spooky Halloween creations, using a bespoke blend of Cacao Barry beans, made specially for Kelly by the famous Paris chocolate atelier. Look out for Kelly’s delicacies during Afternoon Tea, and on this Spring’s seasonal menu in the Garden Room Restaurant, which features a very delicious Pot of Gold, with Merrion Milk Chocolate Mousse, Chantilly Cream and Cocoa Sable. Will a spoonful give you special powers? You decide.