Chocolate Emerges in Central America – Or Does It?

Chocolate has been around for millennia if the dating of pots uncovered at an archaeological dig are to be believed. The fruit pulp for sure was consumed as it is a much more natural substance to be consumed. The seeds/beans that come from the fruit are not a natural match for consuming as they are extremely bitter until they are fermented at the very least.

Once the peoples of Mesoamerica caught on to the fermentation part, they fell in love with the cocoa beans. Once we progress in time on to the 12th century, we find that the people descended from the Mokaya and other peoples of the area eventually became the Mayan and Aztec and those peoples have extended in Central and South America.  This kind of progress is natural and normal and not necessarily driven by disasters or pressures.

Both the Mayans and the Aztecs used cocoa beans in religious and sacred rituals. Clearly they knew and understood the value of the cocoa bean once allowed to ferment. Cocoa beans were also used by the Mayans to trade with other populations in the area. So we know from this that there was not a homogeneous population in the area at the time.

 The Aztecs attributed the creation of the cocoa plant/tree to their god Quetzalcoatl. In their mythology, it is said that Quetzalcoatl descended from heaven on the beam of a morning star carrying a cocoa tree stolen from paradise. The divine origins of the cocoa tree makes them an ideal offering to the Gods but also places them outside general population access. Given how coca trees grow, we can only assume they were under some sort of protection like swans in England.

In both the Mayan and Aztec cultures fermented, dried and ground cocoa beans were the basis for a thick, cold, unsweetened drink called xocoatl considered as a health elixir. Having experienced this drink, it is as far from modern chocolate as it may be possible to get with the same base ingredient. Since sugar was unknown to the Aztecs, different spices were used to add flavour, such as cinnamon or hot chili peppers. There are some who assert that honey may have been added but without archaeological evidence from this time period we can’t be sure.

Moving forward 300 years into the 15th century and we find European powers moving across the globe. Chocolate still isn’t anywhere near the form we now know it to be. Chocolate is also still localised to central and south America. In 1492 as many people know, Christopher Columbus sails to the ‘new world’ and brings back a few cacao beans to King Ferdinand. However, the cacao beans, despite their extremely high value, were mostly ignored in favour of the many other treasures Columbus found and brought back.

Chocolate is not, however, lost to the world. Despite not being initially seen as important. Columbus brought cocoa beans back with him because of their status as money and a divine food making it inherently valuable locally, however it is not treasured by the rest of the world. It is, of course, unsurprising that the value of cocoa beans is not initially recognised by people in the ‘old world’. Chocolate is still unknown, roasting isn’t necessarily something happening with beans and, of course, it isn’t a sweet food.

It will take over 20 years before Spain rediscovered the value of cocoa beans and starts on the path to discovering chocolate which will culminate in the delicious confection that we have today. But first Spain has to send Cortez to Central America and he has to rediscover chocolate.

The Ancient Origins of Chocolate

Etymologists can trace the origin of the word "chocolate" back to the ancient Aztec word "xocoatl".  This word referred to a bitter drink which was brewed from  raw cacao beans harvested in the area. The Latin name given to the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means "food of the gods" and it certainly was treated as such.

1400 BC

The history of chocolate begins in Mesoamerica which is what the area of Mexico and Central America at the time was referred to as. In 2007, anthropologists announced the discovery of cacao residue on pottery excavated in Honduras that could date back from 1400 BCE (before common era) or even 1700 BCE. The sweet pulp of the cacao fruit was apparently fermented into an alcoholic beverage of the time. Not really chocolate but what it does is establishes that the trees were present and known of.

The problem with cocoa is that the flesh of the fruit is sweet and delicious and the cacao seeds are poisonous to humans as well as being bitter with no flavour. What would possibly have to happen is a mass consumption of the cacao fruit took place, the seeds were all dumped in a big pile and fermented. Someone noticed the smell and checked the beans and noticed the membrane was gone and they smelled different and perhaps some animal ate them or something. Somehow the link between fermenting the seeds and changing flavours happened and suddenly the beans became palatable to consume in a drink.

In order to be able to get to the chocolate we have today, we have to traverse eons but first we have to get to a point where people are indeed using or eating cacao. In the publication Antiquity Vol 81 Issue 314 December 2007 we find reference to the possibility of ‘cacao’ being used or at least stored. The Mokaya archaeological site of Paso de la Amada on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Mexico, and the Olmec archaeological site of El Manatí on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico, have each yielded one ceramic vessel that contain residues from the preparation of cacao beverages during the Early Formative (1900-900 BC) period. That analysis looks specifically for markers which could be present if something was simply stored in a vessel and of course it could have been part of the funerary rites that this wonderful fruit was left as an offering.  Their analysis, they assert, showed that chocolate (Theobroma cacao) was consumed by the Mokaya as early as 1900 BC and by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC, pushing back the chemical evidence of cacao use by some 700 years.

This is no proof of the consumption of chocolate, cacao or anything more than the fact it was around and important enough to be stored in a pot. There is, of course, other evidence around the consumption of cacao as a drink which the researchers are using to extend the theory that chocolate was consumed as a beverage at this time. Importantly, what the research does not point out is whether the other elements commonly included were present such as honey residue or spice residue. The lack of mention could be due to limitations in the word count of the article or because it wasn’t tested for. There is also the chance the residue contained only the cacao they were looking for.

While a romantic notion that chocolate has been enjoyed for millennia, it is difficult to justify that assertion simply based on the findings. While the tree itself was around, making it a natural inhabitant of the environment, the manipulation of the cacao seeds through the fermentation process, drying, roasting, conching and tempering to bring us our current chocolate is very much further down the line.

While we know chocolate dates back to the Aztecs, could chocolate be even older? What we know as chocolate is extremely modern but the tree has been used for millennia. How did chocolate come to be? Here we look at the earliest evidence to trace the history of chocolate…