What is it About Chocolate?

I'ts said that 9 out of 10 people like chocolate. The tenth lies. This may be apocryphal, but the truth is that chocolate has a special place in the consciousness of a great many of us. Where did it come from? Who discovered it? Why does it have the kind of hold on us that it does?

Chocolate grows on trees who knew? The Theobroma cacao tree grows 40-60 feet tall and was first cultivated in all likelihood by the Olmecs, the first American civilization, somewhere around 1250 B.C. Theobroma is Latin for "food of the gods". Mayans brewed it for ceremonial drinks. The Aztecs not only drank it (mixed with vanilla and chili pepper), but used cacao beans as currency. Sometime around 1550, Spanish explorers introduced it to Europe, and its consumption has taken off spectacularly since then. Spanish friars spread the word as they traveled from monastery to monastery. French royalty also became enamored of it, and considered it an aphrodisiac. Hot chocolate made its debut probably in English cafe society in the 1600's, where its popularity exploded in the next century after English and Dutch admirers added milk and sugar to the mix.

A million tons of processed chocolate is consumed each year nowadays. Originally turned into a paste by Fry and Sons, a British confectioner, mainly by adding sugar to cocoa butter and creating a malleable and packagable paste. Through some other technical processes this paste eventually turned into what we are consuming today in prodigious quantities.

Chocolate is also suspected of actually being good for you too. It's very rich in antioxidant phenolics and flavonoids, especially the dark chocolate varieties, contains essential amino acids like tryptophan, and other important chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. You also get a fair amount of caffeine as well. The downside is the sugar which can aid and abet obesity and diabetes. Also, chocolate contains a stimulant called theobromine which has a stimulating and mood elevating effect in humans, but is toxic to animals, especially dogs and cats because they can t metabolize it. Keep it away from them, because otherwise they'll eat it to their great detriment.

Chocolate, it is said, is nature's way of making up for Mondays. In moderation, like most everything else, it truly is an elixir of the gods.

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