Part 4

Among the fragments can be detected minute and very tough bits of tissue. These bits are the hardened germs, or rather portions of the germs, and these are separated from the rest by an apparatus of much simplicity and efficiency.

The clean shells are usually placed at once in packages for transportation. They are extensively used for the domestic preparation of a wholesome and very low-priced drink. This beverage contains a fair proportion of the active principle of the chocolate-seeds themselves, and the flavor is suggestive of chocolate.

The cleaned fragments constitute the so-called “cocoa-nibs” of some foreign markets, and in this state they are used for the preparation of a simple decoction. But in this form they require to be boiled a good while for the development of flavor, and it is therefore better to have them treated beforehand in order to reduce the time of boiling; and this is all the more necessary, since during the long boiling a part of the more delicate aroma peculiar to chocolate-seeds is apt to be dissipated.

We are next to trace these fragments, through the chocolate-mill, and afterwards follow similar fragments through the cocoa-factory.

In the preparation of chocolate, the fragments are ground by a complicated mechanism until they attain the greatest degree of fineness, and constitute a perfectly homogeneous mass or paste. If the chocolate is to be a plain chocolate, it is to receive its delicate flavoring and then go directly into the moulds for shaping it. Every step of the process has to be watched with the most assiduous care. When the chocolate is formed and properly cooled, it is wrapped and packed for the market.

But if the chocolate is to be sweetened, a definite amount of the purest sugar, previously pulverized, is to be added, the whole ground and commingled, the proper flavoring of pure vanilla added, and the semi-solid mass formed in moulds as before. After being moulded it is sent to the packing-room and wrapped.

The variations in the process are innumerable, but all of them are comparatively unimportant when taken singly; the skill in the manufacture requires that each of these slight changes should be made at just the right time and in the right way. In the manufacture of Walter Baker and Co.’s chocolate, this skill has become developed to a very high degree during the hundred years of success. That the firm is ready to avail itself of every appliance known in modern manufacture, is seen by their adoption of the complicated machinery illustrated on page 29. This chocolate-machine has a capacity of five tons of pure chocolate daily. It is accessible to visitors, who may apply at the office in Dorchester for permission to see it in operation.

It is unnecessary to detail the steps of manufacture of many of the chocolate specialties of the firm.

We turn now to the consideration of breakfast cocoa.

The manufacture of breakfast cocoa is based upon two important factors: first, the removal of a definite portion of the cocoa-oil from the roasted seeds; and second, increasing the miscibility of the powdered seeds by securing the greatest practicable degree of fineness.

CAPACITY, FIVE TONS OF CHOCOLATE DAILY.]

While the oil of the chocolate-seed is perfectly wholesome, there are some persons who find in the percentage natural to the seeds a too large amount for easy digestion. The removal of a part of this, which might with propriety be called an excess of the oil, was practised even in very early days, as is seen in the cut herewith given, taken from an old work on the subject. The present method of extracting the oil is not essentially different, save in a few particulars, from that here figured, and therefore need not be described in detail.

The method of manufacture is substantially as follows: the ground fragments of roasted seeds are subjected to pressure, and with the result of withdrawing just as much oil as the manufacturers desire to abstract. The pressed mass is, in the most successful process, treated mechanically in such a manner as to divide and subdivide the minute particles until they are capable of passing through a sieve having several thousand meshes to the square inch. But such pulverization as this would, under ordinary circumstances, reduce the mass to a dull and unattractive powder. In the process devised by the firm of Walter Baker and Co., this high degree of fineness is secured without any loss of brilliancy in the powder,--the color being of the bright-red which is not only attractive in appearance, but when conjoined with the natural chocolate odor and flavor is characteristic of absolutely pure cocoa of the highest grade.

It is instructive to compare such cocoa with the cocoas prepared by what is known in chemical technology as the chemical process. The latter are prepared by treatment with alkaline matters which act on the coloring substances in the seeds, increasing the apparent effect of hot water when the latter is added. In chemically prepared cocoas, the exquisite natural odor and flavor of pure cocoa-seeds have been diminished or wholly lost by the severe treatment to which the materials have been subjected. In some cases the loss of the natural flavor is sought to be partially supplied by the use of fragrant gums, wholly foreign to the natural product.

The detection of these admixtures is generally easy. Comparison with the well-known pure breakfast cocoa of Walter Baker and Co. will reveal at once the vast superiority of a product which has not been treated by chemicals, but which contains only the finest possible powder of the best chocolate-seeds freed from the excess of oil. The exquisite flavor and odor of the pure product are due wholly to the seeds themselves, since absolutely no foreign matter is added from first to last. Walter Baker and Co.’s breakfast cocoa can be used by students of the microscope and of chemistry as a perfect type of the highest order of excellence in manufacture. The enormous increase in consumption of Baker’s cocoa and chocolate indicates that our discriminating public appreciate a thoroughly good article when they see it.

SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHOCOLATE-SEEDS.--VALUE OF CHOCOLATE AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD.

The seeds of plants contain a germ, or embryo, together with a certain amount of food. As soon as the germ sprouts, the food, or a good part of it, is consumed by the seedling, being used by it in the formation of new parts, such as roots and leaves by which the materials for more food can be obtained from the soil and air. Now it happens that the food of plants is pretty much the same as the food of animals, although there is this marked difference in the manner of procuring it: plants can construct their own food from inorganic or mineral matters taken from the earth and atmosphere, while animals, even those which are most like plants, must have their supply of food from organic nature.

Since, then, plants prepare the food which animals are to use (of course flesh-eating animals use their plants, so to speak, at second-hand), it comes to pass very naturally that the food in a good many seeds has been recognized from early times as very useful food for man. Thus the cereals--wheat, maize, oats, barley, and rice--are the seeds of grasses; and there are many other seeds, such as beans, peas, buckwheat, and so on, which have been appropriated as food by man from remote antiquity. But the seeds of some plants are unfit for human food, owing to disagreeable properties which they possess; while there are a few which stand on the very edge of the limit of foods, and have been used in time of scarcity.

The seeds of at least two plants are used as important adjuncts to our list of foods, and can be enumerated among foods without any impropriety. These are coffee and cocoa. They contain nutritive properties,--the latter in very much higher degree than the former,--and they possess also peculiar constituents which entitle them to rank as luxuries. These peculiar constituents are (1) flavoring matters, and (2) an active principle. But, either from its constitution or from its association in the seed, the active principle of coffee, although it has nearly or quite the same ultimate composition as the active principle of cocoa, is unlike it in its effects. The active principle of cocoa is substantially free, as used in its preparations, from any undesirable effects on the nervous system. This active principle of cocoa is Theobromine.

The essentials of a perfect food are (1) a certain amount of carbohydrates, (2) of albuminoids, and (3) certain mineral matters, these latter being substantially the same in all seeds used as food. In cocoa these three groups are combined in proper proportion to constitute a complete food, but there is superadded the active principle, Theobromine, which places it at once in the class of luxuries as well as of necessary foods.

When cocoa-seeds are prepared properly for food, without doing violence to the chemical relations of the different components, a comforting nutritive article of the highest value is obtained. This ideal method of preparation is not a chemical torturing by the addition of foreign ingredients, as in the alkali process, but it consists in the complete unlocking, by perfectly natural, mechanical means, of all the virtues of the seeds. We do not try to render the albuminoids of wheat and other grains soluble by means of ammonia, soda, or potash, nor do we think it desirable to increase the solubility of the albuminoids of egg and meat by adding caustic or carbonated alkalies to them before they are used. And yet chemical processes analogous to these have been devised and are sometimes used with regard to cocoa. In most cases these added substances are detected in the increased amount of mineral matters found in the ash after burning the preparation. The amount of ash in pure cocoa is about four per cent. Any appreciable amount above this may be attributed to the admixture of mineral matters used in the preparation.

The oil in pure chocolate-seeds is about fifty per cent of the whole weight. Although the oil is exceedingly bland and free from rancidity, it has been found expedient in some cases to withdraw a part of this oil, leaving a smaller amount in the product. This is the method pursued in the manufacture of the powdered cocoas. With this reduction in the quantity of oil, the resultant beverage is less likely to disagree with delicate digestion.

It is in all cases of the first importance to obtain only pure cocoa of the highest quality, free from any admixture of foreign matter, such as the alkalies or their carbonates; and further, the product ought to be of the greatest degree of fineness. With regard to the flavors added to chocolate, it is perhaps needless to say that they should be of the utmost degree of purity. This is especially true of vanilla, which owing to its high cost is frequently replaced by artificial flavors. There is, in one respect, a notable difference between sweet chocolate and cocoa: the former may be flavored, the latter should never be. A pure cocoa must be absolutely dependent on its own delicious, natural odor and flavor. No addition of any substance of any kind is admissible.

SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE COOKING OF CHOCOLATE AND COCOA.

BY MRS. ELLEN H. RICHARDS,

Of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The flavor of the cocoa-bean seems to be almost universally liked, and the use of the various preparations made from it is constantly increasing. From the sweet chocolate with which the traveller now provides himself in all journeys in which the supply of food is doubtful either in quantity or quality, to delicate coloring and flavoring of cakes and ices, nearly all kinds of culinary preparations have benefited by the abundance of this favorite substance.

In these forms, chocolate is used in a semi-raw state, the bean having been simply roasted at a gentle heat, ground, and mixed with sugar, which holds the fat. By varying the quantity of the chocolate to be mixed with the ingredients of the cake or ice, an unlimited variety of flavors can be obtained.