TIMELINE: A story of Cacao/Cocoa and Chocolate

Modern formation of the more diversified Theobroma cacao in, all likelihood, the Amazon Rainforest, from whose seeds chocolate would eventually be derived; the earlier date would coincide with the founding populations that peopled the Americas.

The Popol Vuh, a sacred text of Mesoamericans, appears to give a long count calendar date for te first sprout of maize and – by symbolic though not necessarily historical association – cacao, as 1 Manix (manixliterally ‘worker with the Earth’), celebrating their invention on Day One, around 7,900 BC, probably along the Pacific Coast near current day El Salvador. This mythology coincides with the oral history of the Lenca enclave there who call themselves ‘the people of corn and chocolate’

The archaeological site at Santa Ana-La Florida, Zamora Chinchipe, along the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains in present-day Ecuador. The Mayo Chinchipe culture reveals organic residues of a diet rich in

• pepper (Capsicum spp.),
• beans (family Fabaceae),
• cassava (Manihot esculenta),
• yams (Dioscorea spp.),
• sweet potato (Ipomoea spp.),
• corn (Zea mays),
• coca, datura, and yage.

Additionally, ancient traces of starch granules of cacao (Theobroma spp.), plus cacao de monte (Herrania spp.) inside several ceramic and stone vessels. Which served both in ceremonial settings (burials ) and domestic kitchen ware.

Among the original cultivators of cacao, where the Mokaya (“People of the Corn”). The lived during Barra Ceramic Phase, know for thin-walled, finely finished and elaborately decorated pottery vessels. The Peole of the corn lived in present day Soconusco on Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Mexico.

Those vessels eventually became ‘social currency’ among Mesoamericans, exchanged at feasts and ceremonial visits, preserved as heirlooms and funerary companions in the afterlife.

An array of pottery vessels,recovered at the Olmec capital of San Lorenzo and its neighboring ritual site at El Manati test theobromine-positive. That strongly indicates they once contained cacao, most likely in some liquid form.

Of particular curiosity: the finding of several hundred vessels a top a mass grave for sacrificial victims at the height of San Lorenzo’s power. They furnish ample evidence of a well-attended, elite mortuary rite which included the preparation of stored cacao droughts that were ritually served and imbibed.

Suggested date for the domestication of Theobroma cacao in northeastern Ecuador.

Analysis of pottery fragments from Rio Ul ú a Valley in northern Honduras, reveal presence of theobromine and suggested use of a “chocolate beer” or “chocolate wine.” This Olmec-related village people speculatively used to ferment the cacao pulp.

First pottery appears along the Atlantic coast of North America.

The Chocolá site, is situated on a plateau below volcanic mountain ridges at 500-1000m altitude. It’s cacao groves where vitally important, its worth in commerce and cosmology rivaled only by maize. It is an epicenter of chocolate lore.

Early signs of high complexity at Chocolá are attributed to intense cultivation of cacao, irrigated by hydraulic water springs. The site had a lucrative long-distance trade network.

Yale Prof. Michael Coe suggests the monumental stone-sculptors of Izapa (Xoconocho) to form the connective tissue between the earlier Olmec and the later Maya, that loosely ties them all together. If so, this represents a key development for the Southern Maya Area. Plausibly, a seminal link in the rise of Classic Mayan civilization. It’s architecture, city-states, hieroglyphic literacy, detailed ceramics and advanced math / astrology.

Many believe that cacao culture reached its zenith there and then… the Maya naturally selected prized cultivars for their hi-flavor, bringing forth the finest cacao ever cultivated on Earth. Quite possibly true insofar as Friar Francisco Ximénez, noted translator of the holy Mayan text Popul Vuh, recorded single-origin cacaos in the Americas, saying that the absolute best grew along this Pacific coast.

Over the centuries – millennia really – the Maya developed and refined chocolate craft. They planted for variety and diversity on a stunning scale – each selection based on desirable traits and described by respective fruit colors:

• ix sac : white
• ix kan: yellow
• ix chak: red
• ix morado: purple
• ix box: black

Excavated Mayan pot from Colha, Belize, contains chocolate residue.

Vessel from Tomb 19, Rio Azul, Guatemala, contains chocolate residue. The “rosetta stone of cocolate”.

The “Dazzler Vase”, arguably the most famed vessel from all of Mesoamerica, recovered from within the royal ‘Margarita Tomb’ in Copán, Honduras.

A well-preserved layer of cacao residue lines the bottom of the vase, retaining the hue of dark chocolate, the remains of a ritual draft. The intent is that cacao would sustain the departed on their long journey thru the underworld… the finest offering made even more sacred by its escorting them.

Bowl with cacao beans carved out of shells, from royal tomb at Ek ’Balam, Yucat á n, Mexico.

Death of King Pakal “Ajaw K’inich Janaab’ Pakal”, Palenque in B’aakal region, Mexico. Arguably the most renowned of all Mayan monarchs anywhere, in addition to the longest ruling, more than 3 K’atuns = 68 years. The B’aakal area flourished during Pakal’s reign to eclipse the great city of Tik’al.

Carved stone-relief on the north and south ends of his famed sarcophagus, depict his mother, Queen Zac K’uk’, as re-born thru a cacao tree.

Painted capstone from the Temple of the Owls, Chichén Itzá , Mexico, showing emergence of the deity K’awil from the Underworld.

Earliest Chocolate in North America? Site 13 near Canyonlands in present-day Utah was home to peoples who grew corn and dwelt in subterranean houses. Ceramic bowls excavated from the area contain traces of theobromine and caffeine – two markers for chocolate derived from cacao nuts imported from thousands of miles away to the south in a trade network that included parrots and copper bells among other goods.

At Bonampak / Bòonam Pak’ (Mayan for ‘Painted Wall’) in Chiapas, Mexico, a fresco is showing a cacao bundle containing 40,000 beans.

Red Temple at Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala, Mexico with mural of Mayan merchant deity, God L, pictured in front of a cacao tree.

Tenochtitlán, modern day Mexico City, founded by Mexica/Aztecs.

Beginning of the Inca empire in modern Peru.

Chocolate mentioned in poem by King of Texcoco, Netzahualcoyotl.

Thus emperor, warrior, poet and sage who has also graced the Mexican 100 peso note.
A song by Nezahualcoyotl himself:

My friends, stand up!
The princes have become destitute,
I am Nezahualcoyotl,
I am a singer,
head of macaw.
Grasp your flowers and your fan.
With them go out to dance!
You are my child,
you are Yoyontzin.
Take your chocolate,
flower of the cacao tree,
may you drink all of it!
Do the dance,
do the song!
Not here in our house,
we do not live here,
you also will have to go away.

Ferdinando and Isabella, the Spanish Kings, finance voyage of Christopher Columbus. Columbus reaches Caribbean landfall.

Christopher Columbus’ s son, Ferdinand, describes events related to the fourth voyage of his father to Honduras and Panama: first mention of cacao/chocolate in a European language.

“Our men brought the canoe alongside the flagship. For provisions they had such roots and grains as the Indians of Española eat, also a wine made of maizei.e.chicha, that tasted like English beer.
They had as well many of the almonds which the Indians of New Spain use as currency; and these the Indians in the canoe valued greatly, for I noticed that when they were brought aboard with the other goods, and some fell to the floor of the ship, all the Indians squatted down to pick them up as if they had lost something of great value.”

Hernán Cortés marches overland to Tenochtitlan, enters the Aztec city Mexìcâ and drinks chocolate with Montezuma.

August 13… violent fall of Tenochtitlán, capital of the Aztec Empire, and its royal treasury of cacao to Hernan Cortés and his Spanish Conquistadores. A steady presence Europans, marks the end of a way of for those people after 4635 years accoriding to their mesoamerican long count calendar.

With the destruction of the Aztecs’ capital in 1521, and the downfall of their empire, we enter an era in which chocolate-taking was transformed and creolized by the Spanish conquerors, and even new terminology invented, including the very word chocolate itself. Cocoa and chocolate was transformed, renamed, and became a luxury drink as it was brought to Europe, where it was considered a medicine to be taken.

The addition of novel ingredients in European recipes shows new floral scents like rose water, orange blossoms, and jasmine. An increased usage of nuts like almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts compared to the Mesoamerican recepies.

Cortés reports to Emperor Charles V on his return to Spain (fact), presumably carrying cacao seeds in tow (supposition), after writing to him a line (of probable fiction; see entry below dated 1556) that has become a chain letter sent across the world of chocolate:

“These seeds, which they call almonds or cacao, are ground and made into powder, and some other small seeds they have are also ground, and the powder put into ceramic vessels shaped with a spout. They then add water and stir with a spoon, and after it is well-mixed they pour it back and forth from one vessel to another until it’s foamy. The foam is gathered and put into a cup, and when they are ready to drink the beverage they agitate it with some small spoons made of gold, or silver or wood. To drink one must open the mouth wide since it has a froth so it’s necessary to make room for it to dissolve and so go in gradually.
The drink is the most wholesome and substantial of any food or beverage in the world, because whoever drinks a cup of this liquor can go thru a whole day without taking anything else even if on a cross-country journey…”

Account by Father Toribio de Benavente, one of “ The Twelve ” Franciscan priests sent to Mexico, describes use of cacao beans as money, and as a general beverage:

“ This cocoa is a very general drink; they grind it and mix it with corn and other grund seeds; and this is also a major use of the cocoa seeds. It is good and it is considered as a nutritious drink. ”

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdéz publishes La historia general y natural de las Indias; identifies chocolate as healthy.

1st recorded appearance of cacao, along with the chocolate-drinking vessels – xicalli, hispanicized as  jícaras.The where carried in the Old World from Tepetlaoztoc via Veracruz, Mexico to Spain by servants of the encomendero Gonzalo de Salazaar.

After conquering the Incas, Pizzaro dispatches Peranzures de Campo Redondo to explore the land of the Chunchos in forests east of the Peruvian Andes where his expedition comes upon a river valley filled with cacao groves – the first account of Theobroma cacao in the Amazon.

Commonly cited year for the introduction of chocolate to the Spanish court. Kekchi Maya voyage to Europe, brought to Spain by Dominican priests. They offer the draft of foaming chocolate while visiting with Prince Philip of Spain, the later Philip II. Melchor and Alonso Pacheco establish small cacao farms in northern Belize.

Martin de la Cruz (Juan Badianus) writes and illustrates the Mexica herbal today known as the Badianus Codex. Contains image of a cacao tree.

Spain begins an annual treasure fleet… a convey ranging anywhere from 17 to 50 ships, to protect or at least minimize losses against piracy.

Starting with Francois Le Clerc, begin their dogged pursuit of Spanish ships laden with gold, silver, pearls, gems, tobacco, spices and cocoa. Out for sheer profit and sport they lurk the waters under the Jolly Roger Flag and a business motto of ‘no prey, no pay’.

Rumored introduction of a cacao tree into Asia, on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia from Caracas, Venezuela.

Giralimo Benzoni writes in his History of the New World , that chocolate is more a drink for pigs than for humans.

Francisco Hernández completes his nearly 900 page natural history – Obras Completas, that includes the first systematic botany and natural history of cacao on record after Philip II commissioned him in 1569 to travel to Nueva España, now days Mexico, where he wrote it at the Royal Indian Hospital.

It was Caterina, daughter of Filippo II of Spain, who married Carlo Emanuele I, Duke of Savoy to spread chocolate with the arrival in Florence, Italy, at the Court of Cosimo III de Medici.

Florentine Codex identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.
Indians, with permits, granted right to sell chocolate on the streets of Mexico City.

Juan de Cárdenas identifi es medicinal uses of chocolate. Agustin Farfan identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

First mention of chocolate in France. A french translation of Jose de Acosta ’ s Histoire naturelle et morale des Indes tant occidentales qu ’ orientales.

1st recorded shipment of cocoa to the Old World for commercial purposes; Veracruz, Mexico to Seville, Spain. The fleet tax records indicate no cacao beans were transported since Europe then lacked the knowledge and equipment to manufacture the raw material into a consumable good.

Demographic shifts, diseases, and overproduction virtually wipe out Mesoamerican cacao; Spanish colonists eventually shift major production zones and transport cacao seedlings to the Caribbean and northern coast of South America.

The European invasions of South America in the 16th and 17th centuries, principally by the Spanish and Portuguese, were to have a dramatic impact. The military conquests destroyed the Inca state; the consequent epidemics and social chaos reduced this and other indigenous societies by up to 93%.

The Jesuit José de Acosta, writing in 1590:

“The main benefit of this cacao is a beverage which they make called Chocolate, which is a strange thing valued in that country. It disgusts those who are not used to it, for it has a foam on top, or a scum-like bubbling. . .

It is a valued drink, which the Indians offer to the lords who come or pass through their land. And the Spanish men, and even more the Spanish women, are addicted to the black chocolate.”

Acosta 1940 [1590]:251

In Colonial Mesoamerica, as in the Catholic countries of Europe, there were ecclesiastical prohibitions, in particular regarding the use of chocolate during fasts. Some religious orders debated whether to prohibit their members from drinking chocolate, but it proved impossible to enforce that extreme position.

The main issue concerning whether chocolate broke the ecclesiastical fast was to define whether it was a drink or a food. If it was a food, not just a drink, then it could not be taken by practicing Catholics during the fasting hours, which ran from midnight until Holy Communion (in 1962, Vatican Council II shortened this period to one hour). Nor could it be taken on the fast days of Lent. A fast was a penance intended to mortify the flesh by denying it any kind of food.

The issue was argued among ecclesiastics,including popes and laymen for about four hundred years. Some religious orders, like the Jesuits, supported the drinking of chocolate on the grounds that it did not break the fast because it was just a beverage. The Domenicans were  against it.

Middle Passage begins in earnest, inhumanely herding Africans onto slave ships destined for sugarcane, cotton, coffee and cacao plantations in the New World after many Amerinds succumb to European diseases and weapons.

Henry IV charges the Gramont family, who govern the city of Bayonne in the French Basque region, to offer protection to Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Spain. It is believed that some of these refugees were chocolate makers. Samuel de Champlain travels in the Caribbean; describes cacao trees and their uses:

“ there is a tree, which is called cacao …
When this fruit is desired to be made use of, it is reduced to powder, then a paste is made, which is steeped in hot water, in which honey … is mixed and a little spice; then the whole being boiled together, it is drunk in the morning, warm …

and they find themselves so well after having drunk of it that they can pass a whole day without eating or having great appetite.”

English edition of José de Acosta’s book on chocolate.

Antonio Carletti, takes chocolate in Spain and Italy. From there, it spreads to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Chocolate was produced in Italy in the cities of Florence, Venice and Turin.

Spanish princess Anne of Austria marries the boy-king Louis XIII — both 14 years-old at the time of their wedding — to quell enmity between rivals France and Spain. Legend has it that she gave her all with an engagement present of chocolate which leads to the spread of chocolate among European aristocracy. The story cannot be confirmed and is considered apocryphal.

Francisco Hernández publishes Quatro Libros de la Naturaleza. Provides sketch of cacao tree and discusses uses of cacao.

Report of wild cocoa trees growing in Trinidad.

Publication of Bartolomé Marradón’s Diálogo del Uso, the 1st book devoted to chocolate; an imaginary 3-way dialogue between an Amerindian, a physician, and a common citizen, each taking a different viewpoint (idolatry, medical, satanic) in a fantastic treatise of Indo-European bridge-work on the pros and cons of cacáo, highlighting its potency, sorcery, and blasphemy.

Inquisition document from Mexico, related to witchcraft, contains a spell using dirt from a woman’ s grave mixed with chocolate to make a violent husband harmless.

“Under her bed a piece of flesh from one of the quarters of a man who had been hanged, and that she had roasted it and mixed with her chocolate. ”

Un Discurso de Chocolate by Dr. Santiago Valverde Turices; first guide on chocolate for:

“the many people who are now discussing chocolate… asking if it’s healthy or harmful”

Rauch publishes his Disputatio Medico Dioetetica and condemns cocoa as a beverage that inflames human passion.

Inquisition document (Mexico): declaration related to witchcraft.

“Inthe city of Tepeaca … Before Mr. Domingo Carvajal y Sosa, Commissioner of the Holy Office, appeared, without being called and swearing to tell the truth, a woman who said her name was Ana Perdomo, widow of Ardiga, of this city, who is 28 years old. (A long, complicated story is told, basically: her husband was in love with a woman named Augustina de Vergara and Augustina) gave him menstrual blood to drink in his chocolate.”

Inquisition document (Mexico): declaration related to witchcraft:

“Magdalena Mendes the half woman of Francisco Palacios, a Spanish man, said that a mulatto woman named María gave her a herb for her to give it to the man that she was with, so he will forget the other woman. And she told her that she should dissolve that herb in chocolate and give it to him four times. She also told her, that another thing she could do in order for him to forget the other woman, was to find the heart of a crow, mixed with the excrements of that woman, and give this potion to him mixed with his chocolate drink.”

The Dominicans view on chocolate in dispute with the Jesuits became acidic when, in the Spaniard Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra made the usual claim that chocolate excited the venereal appetite, arguing that in order to protect the flesh from sin (which was the reason for the fast), the beverage should be prohibited on Lent.

Colmenero de Ledesma publishes first book dedicated entirely to chocolate: Curioso Tradado de la Naturaleza y Calidad del Chocolate, Dividido en Quatro Puntos.

Antonio de Leon Peinelo publishes Question Moral se el Chocolate Quebranta el Ayuno Eclesiastico: moral issues regarding whether or not chocolate is a food, can be consumed during Lent and so on.

Cacao introduced to Puerto Rico.

Spanish Monarchy imposes first “vice tax” on cacao and its chocolate ingredients. Letter signed by King Philip IV of Spain instructs payment of 12,300 reales for 41 arrobas or 1025 pounds of chocolate. Letter states that it was “ his will that the persons who brought the chocolate to Madrid, would be paid.

Cacao trees introduced to Jamaica.

Reign of Louis XIV begins. Palace guests customarily get served cocoa at 10AM while the host is still in bed.

Lent celebrated with chocolate gifts at the Jesus Maria Convent, Mexico City.

King of Spain issues royal decree rescinding permission for vendors (defined as mestizo, mulatto, black, and Chinese) to sell cocoa and chocolate within all his dominions.

Thomas Gage identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Cacao introduced into the Antilles.

Coffeehouse in England opens at Oxford that sells also chocolate:
“ Cirques Jobson, a Jew and Jacobite, borne neare Mount – Libanus, sold coffee in Oxon [Oxford] in an house between Edmund hall and Queen Coll. [Queen College] corner.

Coffey, which had been drank by some persons in Oxon [Oxford] 1650, was this yeare publickly sold at or neare the Angle within the east gate of Oxon [Oxford]; as also chocolate, by an outlander or a Jew. ” [sic]

Benjamin d’Acosta establishes first cacao – producing plant in New World on Martinique.

King Louis XIV of France grants David Chaliou royal patent to manufacture liquid, pastille (lozenge) or box form chocolate.

America loses its birthright as cacao begins to circumnavigate the globe from its New World home in the form of seedlings/grafts.
First across the Pacific to the Philippines, then later to the South Pacific, Africa, and all around the Caribbean basin.

Principle routes of cacao movement:
1 ) 1660-70 Mexico to Philippines;
2 ) 1664 -51 Amazon to Martinique;
3 ) Philippines -> Indonesia;
4 ) 1757 Amazon -> Trinidad;
5 ) Early 19th Century Indonesia -> Ceylon (Sri Lanka); 6 ) 18th & 19th Centuries Amazon -> SE Brazil;
7 ) 1822 Brazil -> San Principe;
8 ) 1840s Dublin -> Sierra Leone;
9 ) 1861 Ecuador -> Guatemala;
10 ) 1880-1 Trindad -> Ceylon (Sri Lanka);
11 ) 1883 Trinidad -> Fiji;
12 ) 1892-3 Trinidad -> Nicaragua & back;
13 ) 1898 Trinidad -> Costa Rica & Colombia;
14 ) 1890 Venezuela -> Ecuador;
15 ) 1930s Ecuador -> Costa Rica & Panama;
16 ) 1880s Trinidad, Venezuela, & Ecuador -> São Tomé;
17 ) 1899 Trinidad, Venezuela, Ecuador & Central America to Cameroon;
18 ) late 19th Century Indonesia to Samoa
(Source: The Genetic Diversity of Cacao, B.G.D. Bartley)

Expansion of cocoa cultivation from its area of origin, the American continent.

THE VERTUES OF CHOCOLATE

Anonymous author publishes erotic chocolate poem in The Vertues of Chocolate, East – India Drink.
The pamphlet explained, that “by this pleasing drink health is preserved, sickness diverted.”
also claimed chocolate could cure kidney stones and urinary problems, and promised women that drinking chocolate would make them very attractive to the opposite sex.

Anonymous, The Vertues of Chocolate East-India Drink (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1660), one page.

Nor need the Women longer grieve,
Who spend their oyle yet not Conceive,
For ’tis a Help Immediate,
If such but Lick of Chocolate.
Beauty gaind and continued,
as this verse speaketh,

The Nut-Browne Lasses of the Land,
Whom Nature vail’d in Face and hand,
Are quickly Beauties of High-Rate,
By one small Draught of Chocolate.

It is impossible to innumerate all new and
admirable effects then producing every day
in such as drink it, therefore I’le leave the
Judgement of it, to those who daily make a
continual proofe of it.
University Giessen

Henry Stubbe identifies medicinal uses of chocolate: The Indian Nectar or a Discourse Concerning Chocolata.

Pope Alexander VII settled the debate over chocolate and fasting with a single sentence:

“Liquidum non frangit jejunum [Liquids which would have included drinking chocolate do not break the fast].”

and the faithful could consume it on Fridays and even during Lent.

Franciscus Maria Brancatius discusses chocolate: De Chocalatis Potu Diatribe.

Colbert creates the West Indies Company and gives it trading monopoly in the French Antilles.

D’Acosta and other Jews in Martinique lose the right to trade in cacao.

Simon Paulli writes the uses/abuses of tobacco with commentaries on chocolate and tea: Commentarius de Abusu Tabaci.

Statement by Sir Thomas Modyford regarding Jamaica: Argues that the island should be populated as quickly as possible and that owners of ships will willingly transport slaves:

“The price being males 12 £ to 15 £ , females 10 £ to 12 £ ready money, with which they buy cocoa which nearly doubles at their return, so that many [slaves] have been brought hither [to Jamaica] within these ten months. ”

First mention of chocolate in the Bayonne Municipal Archive. Used by town offi cials as gifts for persons of “ consequence. ” Chocolate brought to France from Spain.

Commonly accepted year when cacao plantations began to be developed in the Philippines by Pedro Bravo do  los Camerinos.
Portuguese report presence of cacao beans during exploration of Amazon River headwaters.

First French chocolatière reference is in a letter by the Marquise de Sévigné to her adult daughter, Madame de Grignan, whom she advises to take chocolate as a medical restorative for fatigue. The Marquise writes:

“You have no chocolatière — I’ ve thought about it a thousand times! How will you make it chocolate? ”

Praliné, the wreckage of a kitchen accident (a dropped bowl of almonds and a pan of burnt sugar) by the pastry chef to the duc de Choiseul – compte du Plesslis-Praslin (ambassador under Louis XIII) – who was then served whatever could be scraped off the floor; he ate it up.

William Hughes identifi es medicinal uses of chocolate, with specifi comments on asthma:

“The American Physitian [sic] … Whereunto is added a Discourse on the Cacao – Nut – Tree, and the Use of Its Fruit, with All the Ways of Making Chocolate. “ [Cacao] being very nourishing … and keepeth the body fat and plump … Chocolate is good against all coughs shortness of breath, opening and making the roughness of the artery smooth …
[chocolate] strengthens the vitals and is good against fevers, catarrhs, asthmaes [ sic ], and consumptions of all sorts.”

Hot cocoa, according to the International Cocoa Organization, Sir Hans Sloane details in the American Physitian a medicinal recipe using milk in drinking chocolate which he believes has therapeutic properties but because the taste is unpalatable, he boils the beans in milk and sugar, creating the 1st milk chocolate draft.

The Coffee Mill and Tobasco Roll Shoppe in London prepares the ‘Spanish-style Chocolate Roll’, forerunner to the Tootsie Roll™ as well as the modern chocolate bar, to be eaten rather than drunk.

Commonly accepted year when cacao plantations were established in the Brazilian state of Para.

Writing from Canton, China, to his minister provincial on March 5, Father Buenaventura Ibañez noted that he had requested a cargo of cacao to be sent from New Spain with all the accoutrements necessary to make chocolate as a present for the “king of Canton.”

This is one of the rare sources where the intent is to give chocolate to the Chinese rather than keeping it among the missionaries.

The ship Triomphant arrives in the French port of Brest from Martinique with a cargo of cacao, marking the opening of official trade in cacao between France and the France Caribbean.

The word chocolate first appears in Pierre Richelet’s French dictionary.

François Foucault, in his dissertation An Chocolatae usus salubris? , argues for the medicinal benefits of chocolate.

Sylvestre Dufor identifies medicinal uses of chocolate. Traitez Nouveaux et Curieux du Café , du Thé et du Chocolat.

Henry Mundy publishes Opera Omnia Medico – Physica de Aere Vitali, Esculentis et Potulentis cum Appendice de Parergis in Victu et Chocolatu, Thea, Caffea, Tobacco.

King of Siam sends gift of nine chocolatières (chocolate pots) to King Louis XIV of France.

Father Buenaventura Ibañez, in a letter dated February 24 (written in China) refers to the use of chocolate as a pharmaceutical. He complains that he could eat neither meat nor chicken and only a little fish, and found, however, that a good bowl of chocolate in the mornings was helpful.

First mention of chocolate production in Bayonne, France.

Nicolas de Blégny identifies medicinal uses of chocolate: Le bon Usage de Thé , du Caffé , et du Chocolat pour la Preservation et pour la Guerison des Malades.

Sir Hans Sloane traveling in Jamaica records a native recipe that he brings back to Europe, the so – called Sloane Recipe.

Inquisition document (Mexico): declaration related to witchcraft. Denunciation of Simón Hernán, Spanish, 35 years old:

“During the religious office at the Nuestra Señora de la Merced in this Province of Mexico he [Sim ón] give some powders to a Spanish woman named Micaela, and he gave them to her mixed with chocolate. Eight days later and without telling anything to his wife, in another religious office, he gave her again those powders mixed with chocolate. He [Simón] declared that those powders were meant to seduce Micaela and in doing so be able to enjoy her favors, but that the powders had no effect on Micaela. “ This, he [Simón] declares as true and under oath. ”

Hans Sloane adds milk to chocolate to make it more palatable. First colonial newspaper published in Boston ( Publik  ccurrences ); article mentions smallpox epidemic in Boston.

François Massaliot’s Cuisinier Roial et Bourgeois, a guide to organizing meals for the French upper classes, offers recipes for Macreuse en rago û t au Chocolat , a savory poultry dish with a chocolate sauce, and Crême de Chocolat, using milk, sugar, and egg yolk, in addition to chocolate.

Bayonne non – Jewish chocolatiers gain passage of a municipal ordinance prohibiting Jews from selling chocolate within the city gates.

Chocolate served to a Turkish Aga in Smyrna (Izmir) by Gemelli Careri. 1693 to 1718 the Grimaldi and Lorefice familyies in Sicily recive chocolate from the Gesuit priest Pietro Eredia to Palermo.

Marcus Mappus publishes Dissertationes Medicae Tres de Receptis Hodie Etiam in Europa, Potus Calidi Generibus Thé e, Care, Chocolata.

James Lightbody publishes Every Man His Own Gauger and identifies how to make chocolate “ cakes ” and “ rowles. ”

Reported attempt to assassinate King Charles II of England with poisoned chocolate.

(Dr.) Duncan publishes: Wholesome Advice Against the Abuse of Hot Liquors, Particularly of Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, etc.

Chocolate as a pharmaceutical appears frequently in the requests of the Franciscans priest and medical surgeon, Fr. Antonio de la Concepción, living in southern China. Letter, dated November 17, notes that the chocolate requested earlier, has not arrived.

Alexander Pope, in The Rape of the Lock , writes:

“In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, and tremble at the sea that froaths below!”

De Chélus publishes Histoire Naturelle du Cacao et du Sucre.

The true dawn of the chocolate bar… Richard Brookes writes in the 2nd edition to The Natural History of Chocolate about eating chocolate in solid form rather than a liquid beverage:

“When a person is obliged to go from home, and cannot stay to have it made into a drink, he may eat an ounce of it, and drinking after it, leave the stomach to dissolve it.”

No doubt the pochteca, the pre-Columbian couriers of their day who delivered chocolate tablets or balls across the Mesoamerican continent on foot, probably consumed it likewise when in a pinch.

Fry and Sons begin chocolate production in Bristol, England. Walter Churchman starts to manufacture chocolate in Bristol, England. He petitions king of England for patent and sole use of an invention for the:

“Expeditious, fine and clean making of chocolate by an engine.”

De Quelus identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Dutch East India Company ship, Coxhoorn, leaves Canton and arrives in Amsterdam with 9457 Chinese chocolate cups and pots.
Richard Brookes comments that chocolate can be eaten in solid form early mention of chocolate consumed other than as a beverage.

Additional English patent issued to Walter Churchman for

“New invention of making chocolate without fire, to greater perfection, in all respects, than by the common method.”

A Nouvelle Instruction pour les confitures, les liqueurs, et les fruits, notes that chocolate can be made as a beverage, or in solid form for candies and biscuits.

Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) writes Systema naturae. He classifies the tree from which chocolate derives and baptizes it Theobroma cacao (theobroma, Greek for ‘God-food’)

F. E. Bruckman publishes Relatio de Cacao.

French explorers Pierre and Paul Mallet pack and carry a handmill and three chocolate cups during their expedition to Sante Fe (New Mexico).

Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Simon Paulli writes treatise on chocolate, coffee, tea, and tobacco; argues for the rejection of these beverages as they cause effeminacy, impotency, and sterility.

Ciocolato di Modica or Ciocolato Modicano. Archival papers of the Genoese branch of the noble family Grimaldi [Archive Grimaldi (1521 -1882), kept in the Ragusa State Archive – Section of Modica.], who settled in Modica in the 16th century, document that in the capital of the ancient county as early as 1746, “cicolateri” , manipulated aromatic cooked cocoa. The specialty was introduced in the County of Modica by the Spaniards, during their domination in southern Italy.

R. Campbell publishes The London Tradesman , which contains the account:

“Chocolate is made of Cocoa, the Product of the West –Indies. It is stripped of its Shell, or rather Husk, and wrought upon a Stone over Charcoal Fire till it is equally mellow put into Moulds, which shapes it into Cakes. To perfume it they mix it Venello [i.e., vanilla]. It is a hot laborious Business, but does not require much Ingenuity. Journeyman’s Wages is from Twelve to Fifteen Shillings a Week, are not employed much in the Summer. They require Heat to work with, but cold Weather is necessary to dry it.”

Simon Lord Lovant requests and is served chocolate on the day of his execution.

Juan de la Mata publishes his cookbook, Arte de Reposteria, which contains various recipes for chocolate.

Letter written by Father Junipero Serra during his voyage from Cadiz, Spain, to Vera Cruz. Letter confirms that Serra brought chocolate with him on the voyage and he laments:

“There was not enough water [aboard] and rationing was introduced for all … nor could we drink chocolate we brought with us because there was not water to boil it with.”

Barbados account of French selling slaves for quantities of cocoa and coffee.

First chocolate factory established in Germany.

Forestero cacao introduced to Trinidad from Venezuela.

Inquisition document, Mexico: support for the banning of chocolate crucifixes and chocolate images of Mary.

Play opens in London entitled The Chocolate – Makers: or, Mimicry Exposed.

Several references to chocolate in Candide by Voltaire, where he will triangulate chocolate, women, and illicit sex more than once and usually in Italy.

In his satirical novel, Candide, or Optimism (Candide, ou l’Optimisme), chocolate and sex have a political relationship bound up with the excesses of a wanton nobility and the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Pangloss explains syphilis as a necessary sacrifice to the pleasures brought about by chocolate and cochineal—insects used to make the rich red dye worn by royalty and clergy— which of course also came back to Europe following the conquest of the Caribbean and Mexico.
Pangloss says to Candide:

“For if Columbus, on an island off the Americas, had not contracted this disease-which poisons the source of all procreation, and often even prevents procreation, contrary though this be to nature’s great plan-we would have neither chocolate nor cochineal.”

In another satirical call-out to history, the well-documented role Mesoamerican women played in preparing and serving chocolate finds perverse expression in the figure of Paquette. Along with the many women in the genealogy, right back to the Mesoamerican woman who purportedly infected Columbus’s crew, Paquette serves up syphilis instead of chocolate. https://www.cacaosophy.com/single-post/2016/10/10/Chocolate-and-Syphilis.

Father Junipero Serra reported from Mexico that priests and Indians were suffering from local epidemics and lack of provisions; describes hardships and how they were sustained by chocolate and atole.

Report of cacao grown in the Philippines.

Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’ Alembert contains an illustration of a worker grinding chocolate.

Following appeals by local Jewish leaders, the Bordeaux parlement dissolves the Bayonne chocolate makers ’ guild, handing the Jews a victory in the Bayonne chocolate war.

Chocolate appears as a word in German texts used to teach grammar.

Year of commonly cited story that Pope Clement XIV was murdered by poisoned chocolate prepared by Jesuit priests.

Gen. George Washington regularly imbibes at Mt. Vernon and the State of Virginia makes chocolate a field ration for its continental troops during the War of Independence.

France, Doret invents a hydraulic process to grind cocoa beans into a paste, facilitating the first large-scale production of chocolate.
Joseph Fry predicts a vast export market for cacao if trade duties be favorably aligned:

“As it is certain that good and beautiful Chocolate cannot be made in warm Climates, and that abroad that English Chocolate is prefferr’d to most if not any other sort, doubtless very large Quantities would be exported to the East and West Indies and many other Places, if a suitable Drawback were to be allowed in Exportation.”

A Monsieur Doret is given an award for developing a machine to mix ground chocolate.

Voltaire writes that imported chocolate is among the items causing poverty in France.

Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, writes to his wife on May 16:

“The sponge cake is not at all what I asked for:
1) I wanted it iced everywhere, both on top and underneath, with the same icing used on the little cookies;
2) I wanted it to be chocolate inside, of which it contains not the slightest hint; they have colored it with some sort of dark herb, but there is not what one could call the slightest suspicion of chocolate. The next time you send me a package, please have it made for me, and try to have some trustworthy person there to see for themselves that some chocolate is put inside. The cookies must smell of chocolate, as if one were biting into a chocolate bar.”

Completion of Diderot’ s Encyclopedia (containing images of chocolate production).

Hurricane destruction in Barbados and Martinique, destroying crops and cacao production.

Thomas Jefferson, the agrarian aristocrat, augurs hot cocoa as the All-American draft. In a letter to his rival John Adams dated November 27, Jefferson predicts it will eventually eclipse coffee in American preferences due to the: “superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment”.

Jacques Casanova includes many references to chocolate in his memoirs.

Adam Smith publishes An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . Identifi es cacao – nuts among the:

“Enumerated commodities of two sorts: those produced in America, or not produced in the mother country.”

Hannah Glasse publishes The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy , with recipes for chocolate.

French Revolution ostensibly cleaves along the lines of coffee vs. cocoa – the coffee wins-out over palace lackeys and sycophants who took cocoa as a morning beverage after Camille Desmoulins plots the assault on the Bastille from Café Foy, Paris, July 13.

Daniel Defoe writes Robinson Crusoe; Crusoe salvages a chocolate pot from a wrecked ship.

Publication in London of the New Etiquette for Mourners .

“A Husband Losing His Wife. Must weep, or seem to weep at the funeral. Should not appear at the chocolate – house the first week;
should vent a proper sigh whenever good wives, or even matrimony is mentioned. May take a mistress into keeping the third week, provided he had not one before. May appear with her in public at the end of the month; and as he probably may not chuse to marry again, he may, at the close of the second month, be allowed a couple of mistresses to solace him in his melan choly.”

Attempt to assassinate King Fredrick of Prussia by putting poison in his chocolate:

“From that period, Frederick, before he took his chocolate, always gave a little to his dogs.”

Marie Antoinette, hoping to flee the French Revolution with her family, orders a nécessaire de voyage: Portable case holding implements to make tea, coffee, and chocolate, to be made . Case contains a silver chocolati è re. This nécessaire de voyage and chocolatiére appear as inventory items 1794, a year after her execution.

All French guilds are dissolved; Jews granted legal citizenship, ending Bayonne chocolate guild controversy.

Jesuits evicted from Mexico caught smuggling gold into Spain; gold discovered and hidden inside “ globs ”of chocolate.

Report dated May 31, cautioning American manufacturers importing chocolate into India to be ethical in their trade dealings:

“If your chocolate, instead of being made of Cocoa, should be found to be little else but a greasy mixture, no one will touch it twice.”

Hugh Smith publishes An Essay on Foreign Teas, with Observations of Mineral Waters, Coffee, Chocolate, Etc .

Joseph Fry installs a steam engine in his chocolate manufactury in Bristol, England. Steam engines are used to grind cocoa beans making chocolate cheaper, as part of the Industrial Revolution

Antonio Lavadan identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Thomas Hayes recommends chocolate in the diet of asthmatic patients.

John Hunter, physician, describes how he bled a pregnant patient who had eaten only dry toast with a cup of chocolate for breakfast, and found the blood “inflamed. ”

Erasmus Darwin suffers gout; treats himself with a diet that contains chocolate.

Widely circulated English propaganda report that Pauline Riotti, a former mistress servant of Napoleon Bonaparte, attempted to murder him by putting poison in his chocolate (apocryphal).

Importation of slaves into United States forbidden.
Announcement that Bayonne, France, is famous for hams, chocolate, and bayonets.

Account of chocolate purchased for patients at the San Lorenzo Hospital, Mexico:

“750 pesos have been paid to Felipe de Mendoza for 120 arrobas of chocolate to be given to the sick.”

1 arroba = 25 pounds, therefore, quantity identified as 3000 pounds.

Coronation dinner for King Louis XV of France includes 1500 pounds of chocolate.

Caspar van Houten builds a chocolate mill in Amsterdam, Holland.

J. – J. Machet writes Le Confiseur Moderne, ou l’ Art du Confiseur et du Distillateur and identifies “ Chinese chocolate. ”

Commonly accepted date for first transportation of live cocoa trees from Brazil to São Tomé and Príncipe in Portuguese Africa.

François – Louis Cailler opens first Swiss chocolate factory at Corsier.

English poet, George Gordon Byron writes of the exploits of Don Juan and mentions chocolate.

English merchants prohibited to export chocolate to Russia.

John Cadbury, a young Quaker, announces on March 1st the opening of a shop in Bull Street in Birmingham in the Birmingham Gazette :

“John Cadbury is desirous of introducing to particular notice ‘ Cocoa Nibs ’ , prepared by himself, an article affording a most nutritious beverage for breakfast.”

Philippe Suchard opens chocolate actory in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Jean – Antoine Brutus Menier begins producing chocolate at Noisel, Switzerland.

Anthelme Brillat – Savarin identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Philippe Suchard establishes his chocolate factory in Serrieres, Switzerland.

Earliest advertisement for chocolate candy in England (Fry’ s chocolate lozenges).

Antoine Gallais publishes his Monographie du Cacao , ou Manuel de l’ Amateur de Chocolat in Paris. He writes that the Chinese take much chocolate but as their cacao arrive in paste (form), without spices, they have, in tin or porcelain boxes , a powder composed of vanilla, cinnamon, and ambergris.

Holland, Chemist Caspar van Houten invents a process for extracting cocoa butter, allowing for the extraction of cocoa powder. This makes chocolate more homogenous and less costly to produce. Patent entitled:

“Method for pressing the fat from cocoa beans.”

Van Houten’s promoted the cocoa powder: “For the rich and poor – made instantly – easier than tea”

Cacao spread rapidly across Europe, but it remained exclusively a beverage for over 3,000 years until 1828. The Cocoa Press provided a method for separating out the cocoa butter leaving what is called “cocoa cake,” which could be pulverized into a substance we now know as cocoa powder.

Van Houten, also invented the process of treating cocoa mass with alkaline to remove bitterness, mellow the taste and improve its ability to blend; the resulting product was and is still called “Dutch Process Chocolate” or “Dutched Cocoa”.

With the cocoa press and Dutching process, Van Houten went on to become the father of “Eating Chocolate” which was a method that also made chocolate more affordable for everyone to enjoy.

Thomas Graham identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Charles – Amadé e Kohler makes noisettes au chocolat (chocolate with nuts) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Chocolate production at Lynn, Massachusetts, reaches 60 tons/year.

Goethe makes a cult of cacao:

“Impossible to develop taste from what’s of mediocre quality; it can only be achieved from the very best… Act in the highest spirit.”

John Cadbury starts to manufacture drinking chocolate and cocoa.

José Antonio Alzate describes cocoa production in Mexico:

“Two main harvests each year. One on Christmas Eve, called the Christmas harvest, and the other on [the Feast Day of] San Juan.”

Woskresensky identifies theobromine in cacao beans.

Auguste Saint – Arroman identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

England, commonly accepted year when Joseph Fry and Sons prepared first chocolate candy bar by mixing melted cacao butter back into defatted cocoa powder; This could be pressed into a mold. Solid chocolate is offered to the general public for the first time, prior to this time, solid chocolate was available exclusively within royal courts.

Poulain Chocolate Company created at Blois, France

Aboard ship – going around the Horn to California – Enos Christman writes:

“Today I stood nearly an hour in the rain and cold until my fingers were quite benumbed, holding a tin cup to catch water as it dripped off one of the small [life] boars. This was free from salt and made a good cup of chocolate.”

Daily schedule of Pope Pius IX (after 8:30 a.m.): “The Pope dips biscuits in a mixture of coffee and chocolate” and begins his daily business affairs.

Cadbury introduces a line of milk chocolate prepared after the “Sloane Recipe ” (after Hans Sloane’ s recipe of 1687).

Max Sefelege, native of Potsdam, confined in the insane asylum at Spandau. He pretended, for some time past, that he was the inventor of chocolate.

William Brady, author of The Kedge – Anchor, or Young Sailor’s Assistant , writes that it was the responsibility – when

“taking to the boats, i.e., abandoning ship, that the Cook/Steward be responsible for carrying into the lifeboat the following items: tinder – box, flints and tinder, a lantern and candles, cheese, cabin biscuits, and chocolate.”

Patent developed in England for medicinal gluten chocolate: two parts cocoa, two parts sugar, one part gluten – bread reduced to a fine powder.

Traditional date for the introduction of cacao trees into Ghana.

A. Mitscherlich publishes Der Kakao und die Schokolade.

A. Gosselin publishes Manuel des Chocolatiers.

A. Mangin publishes Le Cacao et la Chocolat.

Auguste Debay identifies medicinal uses of chocolate.

Gianduia: myth-making surrounds Michele Prochet combinating cocoa and toasted “Tonda Gentile delle Langhe” hazelnuts.

The Broma Process happened upon by Domingo Ghirardelli, in which hanging a bag of chocolate in a warm room caused cacáo butter to drip out, extracting it at such an extremely slow rate that it’s rarely if ever used on any industrial scale.

Abraham Lincoln assassinated on Good Friday, while attending the theater. Mexican proverb: “Beware of tasting Chiapa[s] chocolate.”

Article in Harper’s Weekly repeats oft – told story of how the Bishop of Chiapa[s] was poisoned by angry ladies of the region.

The “chocolate box”, Richard Cadbury, also the culprit of the heart-shaped box for Valentine’s Day.

🙂

“What’s the best part of Valentine’s Day?
The day after when all the chocolate goes on sale.”

Announcement that, in the neighborhood of Bingen on the Rhine, adulteration of chocolate was being carried out.

Siege of Paris on the105th day, Ebenezer Washburne reports:

“No change in the price of coffee, chocolate, wine, liqueurs.”

Deranged English woman arrested for lacing chocolate with poison, and lefting children eat it.

Alexandre Dumas’ s Grand dictionnaire de cuisine refers to Chinese chocolate.

Alfred Wanklyn publishes A Practical Treatise on the Analysis of Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, Chocolate.

Milk Chocolate by Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland mixing “pale cocoa” (still the best for milk, though most makers use regular cocoa requiring more milk) with Henri Nestlé’s condensed powdered milk.

Rudolph Lindt, inventor of the conching machine opens a factory which produces a smoother sensory experience for that modern standard of refined chocolate. The luscious molten meltdown discovered by accident when his assistant left it running all night.

Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé form partnership.

Cioccolato di Modica, Francesco Bonajuto, established a well-known pastry shop in Modica, the beans are manually processed and ground in a traditional stone bowl called a metate. This choclate bar is today an Italian P.G.I. specialty chocolate, typical of the municipality of Modica in Sicily. The ancient and original recipe using manual grinding ,rather than conching, gives the chocolate a peculiar grainy texture and aromatic flavor. The only flavourings used are cinnamon and vanilla.

Switzerland, Chocolate flavored with hazelnuts is followed by milk chocolate, developed by Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé respectively. During the same period, Rodolphe Lindt develops the chocolate fondant (fondu).

Successful introduction of cacao onto the African mainland: Gold Coast (Ghana).

The Brownie, a cross between a cookie and a cake, can be traced back at least to an unnamed chef at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago, who, at the request of the owners’s wife – a Mrs. Bertha Potter Palmer – asked for a “Ladies Dessert” that would be edible without besmirching her white-gloved fingers.

The Debauve et Gallais Company of France sells pistoles (chocolate chips) and chocolate bars on the Nanjing Lu Road in Shanghai.

Freia, Norwegian chocolate company, founded.

The “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws,” is an egg-laying hare from Germanic folklore that would leave behind colorful chicken or duck eggs for children who laid out a nest for the mythical being. The chocolate Easter Bunny seems to have been invented by people of German heritage, either in Germany or America, sometime around the 19th century.

Many believe (although it’s certainly not settled) that the name Easter is derived from Germanic goddess of spring and fertility, Eostra. In support, they point to one potential origin story of the Easter Bunny from early German myths, where, after a little girl prayed to Eostra for help saving a dying bird, the goddess transformed it into a hare; moreover, she promised it would return each year bringing rainbow colored eggs.

Rabbits (originally hares) are longstanding fertility symbols associated with the arrival of spring, because they are so prolific and give birth as soon as the weather warms.

In Germany, edible, pastry and sugar bunnies, sometimes with a hard boiled egg placed in its stomach, were being made. Some type of edible bunnies were also being produced in America.

Moving on to the chocolate variety of bunnies, it’s not clear who made them first, other than it was probably someone of German descent in America. Tins for chocolate molds dating to 1890 can be found today in Munich, but at the same time, Pennsylvania’s Robert L. Strohecker made a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit that he placed as an Easter promotion in his drugstore.

“The legend says that the hare is actually a wrongly seen lamb with too long ears,”

knows Klaus Schopen from the Cologne Chocolate Museum.

Historicus (Richard Cadbury) publishes Cocoa: All About it.

Clémentine and Auguste Rouzaud begins making fine chocolates in Royat (France).

Greek advertisements for Loukoumia Sokolatas (chocolate cookies).

United States, Sweet maker Milton Hershey spots chocolate making equipment at the Worlds Fair in Chicago and begins production at a factory in Pennsylvania.

Ganache, Bernard Serardy, Moulin, France.

Cacao planted in the Côte d’ Ivoire.

Cadbury Dairy Milk bar launched.

Cadbury introduces Bournville alkalized cocoa powder.

Perugina ‘Baci’ (kisses).

Hershey’s Kiss.

Toblerone – Theodore Tobler develops triangular nougat – filled chocolate bar.

Chocolate pudding served at a banquet on the Greek island of Samos to honor a visit by the Admiral of the Austrian Navy.

William Cadbury urged several English and American companies to join him in refusing to buy cacao beans from plantations with poor labor conditions.

Ronald Amundsen reaches the South Pole, with chocolate among supplies carried.

Scott and his team of Antarctic explorers celebrate their Christmas meal, which includes chocolate.

Mars Company, America Tacoma, WA.

Birth of the Belgian praline: Jean Neuhaus fills chocolate shells with cream, infused ganche, nut pastes, or other fillings; and his wife creates ballotin boxes of these treasures.

Jules Suchard invents filled chocolate bonbon.

Theodore Roosevelt treks through the Brazilian wilderness carrying 26 foods, among his supplies sweet hocolate (16 ounces served each Wednesday to men).

Advent of the Milk Way bar

Valrhona Chocolate established in Tain L’ Hermitage near Lyon.

Greek physicians recommend chocolate served to tuberculosis patient: “Breakfast milk, plain or with chocolate, or with cocoa, jam, two eggs, butter and bread.”

Jose Rafael Zozaya and Carmelo Tuozzo develop El Rey chocolate company in Venezuela. Local production instead of shipping its beans to Europe or North America for refining.

Cocoa Research Unit established at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad which, in conjunction with the Int’l Cocoa Genebank, forms part of the University of the West Indies.

White Chocolate called Galak introduced by Nestlé’s. Nestle are the first chocolate company in the world to produce white chocolate bar, by excluding the cocoa mass from the chocolate coverture and increasing the amount of milk powder and sugar. It’s called ‘Galak’ and it’s still sold by the Nestle company to this day.
Snickers go on sale.

Ruth Wakefield invents chocolate chip cookies after running out of baking chocolate. Originally, the chopped up improvised Nestle chocolate bar was supposed to blend into the mixture, rather than standing out and being visible.

Kit Kat introduced by Nestlé’s.

Maltesers and Blue Riband go on sale. Dairy Box and Quality Street also go on sale.

Amazon Jungle Expedition by FJ Pound in search of disease-resistant cacao trees.

It it’s not clear when exactly hollow easter bunny’s origins. However, we do know that hollow chocolate bunny molds existed by 1939. It’s easy to assume that chocolate manufacturers make their bunnies with hollow centers as a cost-cutting measure. And while a hollow bunny will indeed include less chocolate than a solid one, there’s actually another reason behind hollow chocolate bunnies.

“If you had a larger-size bunny and it was solid chocolate, it would be like a brick; you’d be breaking teeth,”

Mark Schlott, vice-president of operations at R.M. Palmer in Reading, Pennsylvania, told Smithsonian Magazine in 2010. This type of chocolate bunny would certainly have appealed to the wartime rationing of World War II, which for a time even saw the chocolate bunny disappear from the shelves completely…

Supercrema gianduia in Alba, Italy by Pietro Ferrero who did a “smearing” on bread for kids; morphs into Nutella in 1964.

M&Ms named after Forrest Mars and R. Bruce Murrie, son of former Hershey’s president William Murrie, shell-shock American soldiers.
Inspired by lentil-shaped chocolates protected by a hard sugar-glazed shell eaten in the Spanish Civil War:

“So it melts in your mouth… not in your hands”.

And because they never satiate like real chocolate, M&Ms™ provoke a feeding frenzy where humans graze out on ’em all day long. Millions per hour rumble off the Mars’ assembly lines, exclusively earmarked for the U.S. military, immunizing American GIs to the shell-shocks of WWII.

Groundbreaking work by EE Chessman on cacáo classification to help solve its origin and relationships puzzle; prophesied the center of origin, later confirmed, at the confluence of the rivers Napo, Caquetá, and Putumayo leading to the Amazon River, in the cross-border area of present-day Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador.

Melts in your pants, not in your hands:
British scientists Randall & Boot investigate properties of a vacuum cavity based on designs of German engineer Hans Hollman. Called the Magnatron, this tube converts high voltage electrical energy into microwave radiation for higher frequency signals that can bounce off objects, creating a shadow, making them “visible” to detection.
In a word: radar. Perfect for spotting even the periscope of Nazi U-boat submarines prowling England’s shores. Due to budgetary constraints, British intelligence hands over the technology to the Americans.

Percy LaBaron Spencer of Raytheon Corp USA, standing near a Magnatron with a chocolate bar in his pocket, feels it melt in his pants… the accidental discovery of the microwave oven.

The Candy Bomber in Operation Little Vittles: The first chill in the 40-year ‘Cold War’ – During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. Western Allies respond to the emergency by airlifting food and provisions to the citizens of Berlin.

The pilot – USAF Col. Gail Halverson – drops chocolate bars attached to handkerchief parachutes out of his C-47 cockpit for kids waiting trapped in the city below. Because planes arrive every 90 seconds, they’ve no idea which one is his, so Col. Halverson signals them by ‘wiggling his wings’, or rocking the aircraft. For every day thereafter their numbers increase until a quarter million mini-parachutes “bomb” the entire city.

Germans affectionately nickname the candy-bomber ‘Onkel Wackelflügel’ (Uncle Wiggly Wings), pitting him against dreaded Soviet dictator ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin.

Hoping to avoid the scramble with other kids at the airport, Peter Zimmerman asked the pilot to aim the chocolate right in his backyard. He wrote this letter guide to Col. Halverson:

“Fly along the big canal… at the second bridge turn right. I live in the bombed out house on the corner. I’ll be in the backyard everyday at 2PM. Drop it there”.

When his chocolate failed to arrive, he wrote again,

“You are a pilot? I gave you a map? How did you guys win the war anyway?”

Bounty goes on sale.

The first ‘Goldhase’ – gold hare from Lindt&Sprüngli, Germany,  was sold. Legend has it, that the daughter of the Chocolatiers fell in love with a hare she saw in the garden. The chocolate bunny was packed in golden foil.

The Anglo-Colombian Cacao Collecting Expedition conducts an important survey of a wild region, mainly within Colombia’s borders, that exhibits great diversity.

Basil Bartley, among the last of the great explorers, sets-off on a half-century trek thru the Amazon Rainforest researching Theobroma cacao.

Chocolate on the Roof of the World– Sherpa mountaineer Tenzig Norgay climbs with Sir Edmond Hillary on the first known ascent of Mt. Everest where he leaves behind a ceremonial chocolate offering… never, presumably, to melt at this the highest altitude on Earth. If the Yeti did not take a snack.

Maurice Bernachon, Lyon France; the prototype for chocolate micro-processors.

René Millon’s dissertation at Columbia University, When Money Grew on Trees, anticipates the revival in cacao scholarship by decades.

Hitchcock’s Psycho: chocolate simulates blood in the famous shower scene featuring Janet Leigh, hearkening back to Mesoamerican Toxcatl Festivals, human sacrifice, and symbolic notions of ‘Hearts ‘n Blood’.

After Eight goes on sale.

Raider, later Twix goes on sale.

Leonardo Sciascia writes about Cioccolato di Modica in “La contea di Modica“. The famous Sicilian author could argue, without fear of contradiction, that tasting Modica’s chocolate meant “going to the archetype”, to the absolute, mediating, and we are in 1983, the kinship between the alicantino (Spanish) chocolate and the one of Modica.

“It has an incomparable taste, because when you taste it you have the impression to have reached the absolute, and any other kind of chocolate, even the most renowned – looks like its adulteration, its corruption”

Valrhona’s release of Guanaja – and introduces the concept of the single origin chocolate bar, making their first with beans exclusively from South America. The 70% cacao bar is named Guanaja in honor of the island of Guanaja, off Honduras, where Christopher Columbus first tasted chocolate almost 500 years earlier. They call it a Grand Cru chocolate.

Chocolate bars among the menu items served aboard the USSR Mir space station.

Divine, a fair trade chocolate bar, launched in England by Day Chocolate.

There has been disagreement in the EU about the definition of chocolate; this dispute covers several ingredients, including the types of fat used and the quantity of cocoa. In 1999, however, the EU resolved the fat issue by allowing up to 5% of chocolate’s content to be one of 5 alternatives to cocoa butter: illipe oil, palm oil, sal, shea butter, kokum gurgi, or mango kernel oil.

A recent workaround has been to reduce the amount of cocoa butter in candy bars without using vegetable fats by adding polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR), which is an artificial castor oil-derived emulsifier that simulates the mouthfeel of fat. Up to 0.3% PGPR may be added to chocolate for this purpose. Manufacturers have an incentive to use the name for chocolate for variations that are cheaper to produce, containing less cocoa and more cocoa substitutes.

Chuao becomes 1st cacao-growing region to be legally protected as a producer of named-origin beans or R.O.C. (Region of Origin Certified). It is a small village in the northern coastal valley of Venezuela.

The Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s largest exporter of cacao beans, 1.4 million tons.

The Netherlands both imports and grinds the most cacao. Some is made into chocolates; the remainder is processed into couverture and cocoa powder and exported to other countries which make their own chocolates from it.

Freia, Norwegian chocolate company, founded.

A chocolate – scented mousetrap has been developed by U.K. scientists to catch the pests without the need for bait.

China’ s first Salon du Chocolat, an international exposition of fine chocolates, is held in Beijing.

In March 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, whose members include Hershey’s, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, began lobbying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the legal definition of chocolate to allow the substitution of “safe and suitable vegetable fats and oils” (including partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) for cocoa butter in addition to using “any sweetening agent” (including artificial sweeteners) and milk substitutes. Currently, the FDA does not allow a product to be referred to as “chocolate” if the product contains any of these ingredients. To work around this restriction, products with cocoa substitutes are often branded or labeled as “chocolatey” or “made with chocolate”.

British report that eating chocolate causes human heart rate to rise faster than kissing loved one.

Mapping the cacao genome (approximately 400 million base pairs) accelerates Dr. Juan Carlos Motamayor reclassifies cacao’s taxonomy from a crude scheme of Forastero, Criollo, Trintiario to a refined system inclusive of manifold subclusters that more accurately delineate its broader genetic diversity.

What’s Ancient Becomes Modern Again: Marañón Canyon Cacao recovers – and geneticists confirm – what La Condamine in 1745, Pound in 1938 and Bartley in 2005 had all previously documented, namely, “Ecuador Arriba Nacional” growing at its possible source of origin… in Peru!

The Lab Science of Chocolate: Theobroma cacao Genome Sequence for Criollo assembled by a consortium representing CIRAD, CEPLAC, Penn State University, et al., that includes, among others, Mark Guiltinan, Siela Maximova and Claire Lanuad.

Mars releases a corresponding sequence for the Amazon variety.

The Heirloom Cacao Preservation initiative (HCP), a public-private collaboration between the Fine Chocolate Industry Association and the USDA, designate the first-ever such cacaos on February 11 in NYC – 2 from Bolivia (Heirlooms I & II), 1 from Ecuador (Heirloom III) and, surprise, Hawai’i (Heirloom IV) – amidst a growing concern that chocolate is endangered because it’s tasting more and more like wax these days.

Great chocolate starts with the finer Theobroma cacao trees. But those trees are poised for extinction. They’re being crowded out by the vast majority of other cacao trees – 95% – which are bland, bulk-grade. As this bulk continues to encroach on the other 5% – prized as fine-flavored – at an alarming rate, a world of boring chocolate awaits.
Gary Guittard, President of the Guittard Chocolate Company:

“The pioneering work of the HCP is an important tool in the global effort to promote sustainability”.

The newest innovation in 78 years – since white chocolate – is introduced to consumers. It is ruby chocolate, a pink chocolate made with a particular variety of cacao bean that results in the pink color. Developed by Callebaut.

🙂

“What been loves chocolate?
A cocoa-been.