 THE FOOD OF THE GODS In
1775 a Swedish naturalist Charles Linneo called the cacao tree
“Theobroma” which means in Greek “The food of the Gods”, for its
unique proprieties. The
cacao tree was already known 4000 B.C., in the basin of the Amazon and
in Orinoco, the first growers were probably the Maya,
after them another population spread this tree in the south of the
U.S.A., Mexico. Also another population knew this tree: the Aztecs, who
attributed religious and mystical worths, they used its seeds like a
form of payment, but they were used
mainly for food. It was toasted, ground, mixed with liquid and
beaten until foamy, and the cocoa was served as the principal ingredient
for a drink, called Xocolatl. A cup of this drink, eliminated fatigue
and stimulated physical and mental effort, for this reason they thought
cacao tree had holy divine. The first Europeans who saw the cacao seeds
were some of the men among Christopher Columbu’s crew. During an
exploration they met the Indios, who used this little dark seeds as
money, but they didn’t import them to
Europe, because they didn’t know what they were. Only
in 1528 Cortés a Spanish explorer, brought back home this strange
seeds, spreading
great interest among the botanists together with the Aztecs’
drink “Xocolatl”, improving the flavour. In 1615 the cocoa arrived
in France, during the marriage of the Queen Anna and King Louis XIII.
After France, the cocoa was exported to all Europe, and used as a
medicine at first as a drink and after as food (cake).
Today
we use the cocoa in a million ways: milk chocolate, White chocolate,
plain chocolate, plain chocolate extra, chocolate without sugar,
chocolate with hazel, mint… I
love all chocolate especially with mint, and You??? Silvia
Guzzi
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