The Chocolate-Plant (theobroma Cacao) and Its Products

Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Text printed in italics in the source document have been transcribed between underscores; small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.

The language used is that of the source document; inconsistencies have not been addressed.

Table of Contents: the chapter title for chapter VI does not agree with the headings (Suggestions and Receipts) in the text.

THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT (THEOBROMA CACAO) AND ITS PRODUCTS.

DORCHESTER, MASS.: WALTER BAKER AND COMPANY. 1891.

Copyright, 1890, BY WALTER BAKER AND COMPANY.

University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 5

I. OUTLINE OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHOCOLATE PLANT. -- ITS PRIMITIVE CULTIVATION. -- EARLY METHODS OF UTILIZING THE SEEDS. -- INTRODUCTION OF THE BEVERAGE INTO EUROPE 7

II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHOCOLATE PLANT. -- THE PRESENT RANGE OF THE PLANT UNDER MODERN METHODS OF CULTIVATION. -- COMMERCIAL RELATIONS 16

III. THE SEEDS OF THE CHOCOLATE PLANT, AS THEY APPEAR IN COMMERCE. -- THEIR MICROSCOPIC AND CHEMICAL CHARACTER 23

IV. MANUFACTURE OF CHOCOLATE, AND BREAKFAST COCOA 26

V. SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHOCOLATE SEEDS. -- VALUE OF CHOCOLATE AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD. -- APPLICATIONS OF COCOA-BUTTER 32

VI. A FEW CULINARY RELATIONS OF CHOCOLATE AND BREAKFAST COCOA, BY MRS. ELLEN H. RICHARDS AND MISS PARLOA 35

INTRODUCTORY.

Four years ago, a convenient handbook on the production and use of various preparations of the chocolate plant was published by our firm. The present work is designed to give, with considerably more detail, some of the interesting facts relative to the early history and cultivation of the chocolate tree, as well as a fuller account of its botany and the chemistry of its products. Since this brochure will doubtless fall into the hands of some who do not have access to the earlier work, we have used with freedom some of the material employed in that; but we hope that these necessary repetitions will increase instead of impair the value of the pages now before the reader.

We trust that this second treatise may be acceptable to our many friends who gave so warm a welcome to the first.

WALTER BAKER AND COMPANY.

DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, 1891.

THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT.

OUTLINE OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT.

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 everywhere recognized as worthy of extensive cultivation; namely, tobacco and chocolate. The former of these has made its way into climates totally unlike that of its early home; the other of these plants, since it cannot bear the low temperature occasionally experienced in our subtropics, is more restricted in its range. The chocolate-plant is confined to the warmer regions of the globe, where it finds the congenial climatic conditions which it enjoyed and still enjoys in its earliest home in America.

The first references to the chocolate-plant and its products are found in the accounts of the explorers and conquerors who followed Columbus. These first descriptions of this singular tree, of its fruits and seeds, of its uses and the methods of cultivation, are remarkably accurate in all essential particulars.

One of the earliest, if not indeed the very earliest, delineations of the chocolate-tree is in a rare volume by Bontekoe. The engraving, which is here reproduced with fidelity, represents the chocolate-tree with its comparatively large fruits or pods borne on the main stem. This might be thought at first to be an error of the artist, but it is in fact a rude expression of one of the most remarkable peculiarities of the plant. As will be shown presently, when a fuller description of the plant is given, the fruits are, as a rule, formed on the older parts. Another interesting feature is shown in the engraving: the chocolate-tree is sheltered by a larger tree of some other kind near it. We shall see shortly, that this practice of planting a sheltering tree to shade the young chocolate plants for a time, is still kept up wherever the plant is successfully cultivated. It is certainly interesting that this point in cultivation, which might easily have been thought to be accidental or local, was delineated more than three centuries ago. By the natives of tropical America, the seeds of the chocolate-plant, which will be more particularly described in a later chapter, were first roasted and then rudely ground. For this purpose they employed the flat or curved surface of the sort of stone used by them to grind their maize, or Indian corn. In the engraving, one of the most simple mills or flat mortars is seen with its roller. The roller was merely a short thick stone of a cylindrical shape, which could be used with one or both hands somewhat after the manner of the common rolling-pin everywhere used in kitchens. By this simple appliance, the crushed seeds were mixed with various ingredients, among which may be mentioned spices of different kinds. A modification of this was later used in Spain. See page 15.

The figure in the left of the foreground is said by Bontekoe to represent the native method of procuring fire by rapidly twirling a pointed stick in a groove of a piece of wood placed on the ground.

Part 2

The drinks made from this coarse chocolate were frequently very complex, but the chocolate itself was the chief constituent. It was the custom to beat the mixture into a froth or foam, by means of stirrers, of mallet-like forms; in fact, it is said by some writers that the very name chocolate, is derived from a native word indicating the noise made by the stirring of the beverage.

Thus, Thomas Gage, in his “New Survey of the West Indies,” says (under date of 1648), “The name chocolatte is an Indian name, and is compounded from atte, as some say, or as others, atle, which in the Mexican language signifieth water, and from the sound which the water (wherein is put the chocolatte) makes, as choco, choco, choco, when it is stirred in a cup by an instrument called a ‘molinet,’ or ‘molinillo,’ until it bubble and rise unto a froath.”

From a treatise published in the Seventeenth Century.]

The same writer gives us an interesting account of the native method of preparing the drink. From the extract, which is copied without change of the quaint spelling, it will be seen how wide the use of chocolate was in Europe towards the middle of the seventeenth century:--

“Now, for the making or compounding of this drink, I shall set down here the method. The cacao and the other ingredients must be beaten in a morter of stone, or (as the Indians use) ground upon a broad stone, which they call Metate, and is only made for that use. But first the ingredients are all to be dried, except the Achiotte, with care that they be beaten to powder, keeping them still in stirring that they be not burnt, or become black; for if they be overdried, they will be bitter and lose their virtue. The cinnamon and the long red pepper are to be first beaten with the anniseed, and then the cacao, which must be beaten by little and little till it be all powdered, and in the beating it must be turned round that it may mix the better. Every one of these ingredients must be beaten by itself, and then all be put into the vessel where the cacao is, which you must stir together with a spoon, and then take out that paste, and put it into the morter, under which there must be a little fire, after the confection is made; but if more fire be put under than will only warm it, then the unctuous part will dry away. The Achiotte also must be put in in the beating, that it may the better take the colour. All the ingredients must be searced, save only the cacao, and if from the cacao the dry shell be taken, it will be the better. When it is well beaten and incorporated (which will be known by the shortnesse of it), then with a spoon (so in the Indias is used) is taken up some of the paste, which will be almost liquid, and made into tablets, or else without a spoon put into boxes, and when it is cold it will be hard.

“Those that make it into tablets put a spoonful of the paste upon a piece of paper (the Indians put it upon the leaf of a plaintin tree), where, being put into the shade (for in the sun it melts and dissolves), it grows hard; and then bowing the paper or leaf, the tablet fals off by reason of the fatnesse of the paste. But if it be put into anything of earth or wood, it stickes fast, and will not come off but with scraping or breaking. The manner of drinking it is diverse; the one (being the way most used in Mexico) is to take it hot with Atolle, dissolving a tablet in hot water, and stirring and beating it in the cup, when it is to be drunk, with a Molinet, and when it is well stirred to a scumme, or froth, then to fill the cup with hot Atolle, and so drink it sup by sup. Another way is that the chocolate, being dissolved with cold water and stirred with the Molinet, and the scumme being taken off and put into another vessel, the remainder be set upon the fire, with as much sugar as will sweeten it, and when it is warme, then to powre it upon the scumme which was taken off before, and so to drink it. But the most ordinary way is to warme the water very hot, and then to powre out half the cup full that you mean to drink; and to put into it a tablet or two, or as much as will thicken reasonably the water, and then grinde it well with the Molinet, and when it is well ground and risen to a scumme, to fill the cup with hot water, and so drink it by sups (having sweetened it with sugar), and to eat it with a little conserve or maple bred, steeped into the chocolatte.

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