The Straight Goods on Chocolate: Part One

This blog entry marks the beginning of an ongoing series on chocolate: its origins, history and production. According to Wikipedia, chocolate is made up of a number of raw and processed foods added to the seed of the tropical tree Theobroma cacao. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. The earliest documented use occurred around 1100 BC. The majority of Mesoamerican people, including the Aztecs, made a chocolate beverage from cacao, known in their language as "bitter water." (The seeds of the cacao tree have an intensely bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavour.)

After fermentation has taken place, the beans are dried, cleaned then roasted, after which the shell is removed and the seeds (called cacao nibs) are removed. The nibs are then ground to a cocoa mass, which is pure chocolate in rough form. This cocoa mass is usually liquefied and molded with other ingredients, or else processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains mainly cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions.

Most chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate that combines cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat and sugar. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, milk but no cocoa solids. Cocoa solids contains important alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. Chocolate has also been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Some research has found that chocolate (eaten in moderation) can lower blood pressure. In dogs and cats, however, the presence of theobromine renders chocolate toxic to them.

Chocolate has become one of the most popular food types and flavours in the world. Gifts of chocolate have become traditional on many holidays, especially during Christmas and Easter.