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.