Gourmet

Chocolate—good chocolate—is food that is not only rich with flavour, but also with history; even as early as 1500-400 BC the Olmecs, a civilization that resided somewhere in south-central Mexico, have recognized the cocoa beans’ opportunities as a form of sustenance. The Olmecs crushed the beans, diluted them in water, and threw in chillies and herbs to boot (not a bad idea for a recipe, mind you). The people of the later Mayan civilization are also known to have used the cocoa beans as a form of currency; some excavated drawings actually depict the equivalent of a slave (100 cocoa beans). It was also not uncommon to find ritualistic sacrifices in the form of cocoa beans—Quetzalcoatl is actually known as the Aztec god, who brought abundance through this “brown gold,” as Hernando Cortez, would so appropriately call it early in the 16th century.
The 1500s AD brings about the Western world’s first glimpse of the cocoa bean; Columbus brought the exotic item back to his people as a mere object of curiosity. It was Cortez, however, who found the cocoa drink he shared with the Aztec Emperor Montezuma quite delightful, although the drink was reserved for nobility sometime around the 1530s, and it naturally follows that the recipe for its brewing was then a carefully guarded secret. Simultaneous with Cortez’ victory over the Aztecs (and the civilization’s eventual downfall), came the massive cultivation of the cocoa bean. Thus, the boom of production and shipment of the nectar that the word, “chocolate” referred to began in 1585, with the first cargo’s arrival from New Spain into Iberia.
Perchance we can skip a few centuries, yes? The year: 1780. The brand: Baker’s Chocolate, the pioneer chocolate manufacturer of the United States. The staple term for a specifically sinful taste actually came from this company; Samuel German used greater-than-conventional amounts of chocolate in his cake, and was originally known as “German’s Sweet Chocolate,” although a Texan newspaper published the recipe but mistook the name as “German Chocolate Cake.” As you would undoubtedly already know, the name stuck.
A more popular name in the industry, Hershey’s, was born in 1894 when Milton Hershey of Pennsylvania decided to coat his caramel sweets with chocolate. Six years later, the Hershey Chocolate Company started churning out sumptuous (to the point of addictive) concoctions in the form of bars and other various shapes. Perhaps most famous product, the KISS, saw form in 1907, and got its name from the sound the factory machine made while squeezing out the chocolate. Most definitely, Hershey’s will remain as one of the top names in this forever-popular industry.
Another monstrously known brand in chocolates is Mars, which was born in 1920. Mars Bars originally featured the similar chocolate-covered-caramel characteristic of the early Hershey’s bars, although people were happy to munch on the product all the same. Proof of Mars Incorporated’s strong identity : M & M’s. Those tiny pieces of chocolate that anyone could just keep popping in their craving mouths without a care have taken the world stage for decades.
There are, of course, several other noteworthy names in the industry and history of chocolate. Apart from the names, it is also infinitely fascinating to learn about the different things that people have done with chocolate. Sculptures and even aphrodisiacs made of this gustatory wonder are among the tamest—scientists are actually looking at this elixir’s potential for powering a hydrogen car!
Truly, the history of chocolate is as rich as its taste, although it is a history that has yet to be completed.