The term "Cocoa," a corruption of "Cacao," is almost universally used in
English-speaking countries to designate the seeds of the small tropical
tree known to botanists as THEOBROMA CACAO, from which a great variety
of preparations under the name of cocoa and chocolate for eating and
drinking are made. The name "Chocolatl" is nearly the same in most
European languages, and is taken from the Mexican name of the drink,
"Chocolate" or "Cacahuatl." The Spaniards found chocolate in common use
among the Mexicans at the time of the invasion under Cortez in 1519, and
it was introduced into Spain immediately after. The Mexicans not only
used chocolate as a staple article of food, but they used the seeds of
the cacao tree as a medium of exchange.
No better evidence could be offered of the great advance which has been
made in recent years in the knowledge of dietetics than the remarkable
increase in the consumption of cocoa and chocolate in this country. The
amount retained for home consumption in 1860 was only 1,181,054
pounds--about 3-5 of an ounce for each inhabitant. The amount retained
for home consumption for the year ending Dec. 31, 1908, was 93,956,721
pounds--over 16 ounces for each inhabitant.
Although there was a marked increase in the consumption of tea and
coffee during the same period, the ratio of increase fell far below that
of cocoa. It is evident that the coming American is going to be less of
a tea and coffee drinker, and more of a cocoa and chocolate drinker.
This is the natural result of a better knowledge of the laws of health,
and of the food value of a beverage which nourishes the body while it
also stimulates the brain.
Baron von Liebig, one of the best-known writers on dietetics, says:
"It is a perfect food, as wholesome as delicious, a beneficient restorer
of exhausted power; but its quality must be good and it must be
carefully prepared. It is highly nourishing and easily digested, and is
fitted to repair wasted strength, preserve health, and prolong life. It
agrees with dry temperaments and convalescents; with mothers who nurse
their children; with those whose occupations oblige them to undergo
severe mental strains; with public speakers, and with all those who give
to work a portion of the time needed for sleep. It soothes both stomach
and brain, and for this reason, as well as for others, it is the best
friend of those engaged in literary pursuits."
M. Brillat-Savarin, in his entertaining and valuable work, _Physiologie
du Goût_, says: "Chocolate came over the mountains [from Spain to
France] with Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III and queen of Louis
XIII. The Spanish monks also spread the knowledge of it by the presents
they made to their brothers in France. It is well known that Linnæus
called the fruit of the cocoa tree _theobroma_, 'food for the gods.' The
cause of this emphatic qualification has been sought, and attributed by
some to the fact that he was extravagantly fond of chocolate; by others
to his desire to please his confessor; and by others to his gallantry, a
queen having first introduced it into France.
"The Spanish ladies of the New World, it is said, carried their love for
chocolate to such a degree that, not content with partaking of it
several times a day, they had it sometimes carried after them to church.
This favoring of the senses often drew upon them the censures of the
bishop; but the Reverend Father Escobar, whose metaphysics were as
subtle as his morality was accommodating, declared, formally, that a
fast was not broken by chocolate prepared with water; thus wire-drawing,
in favor of his penitents, the ancient adage, '_Liquidum non frangit
jejunium._'
"Time and experience," he says further, "have shown that chocolate,
carefully prepared, is an article of food as wholesome as it is
agreeable; that it is nourishing, easy of digestion, and does not
possess those qualities injurious to beauty with which coffee has been
reproached; that it is excellently adapted to persons who are obliged to
a great concentration of intellect; in the toils of the pulpit or the
bar, and especially to travellers; that it suits the most feeble
stomach; that excellent effects have been produced by it in chronic
complaints, and that it is a last resource in affections of the pylorus.
"Some persons complain of being unable to digest chocolate; others, on
the contrary, pretend that it has not sufficient nourishment, and that
the effect disappears too soon. It is probable that the former have only
themselves to blame, and that the chocolate which they use is of bad
quality or badly made; for good and well-made chocolate must suit every
stomach which retains the slightest digestive power.
"In regard to the others, the remedy is an easy one: they should
reinforce their breakfast with a _pâté_, a cutlet, or a kidney, moisten
the whole with a good draught of soconusco chocolate, and thank God for
a stomach of such superior activity.
"This gives me an opportunity to make an observation whose accuracy may
be depended upon.
"After a good, complete, and copious breakfast, if we take, in addition,
a cup of well-made chocolate, digestion will be perfectly accomplished
in three hours, and we may dine whenever we like. Out of zeal for
science, and by dint of eloquence, I have induced many ladies to try
this experiment. They all declared, in the beginning, that it would kill
them; but they have all thriven on it and have not failed to glorify
their teacher.
"The people who make constant use of chocolate are the ones who enjoy
the most steady health, and are the least subject to a multitude of
little ailments which destroy the comfort of life; their plumpness is
also more equal. These are two advantages which every one may verify
among his own friends, and wherever the practice is in use."
In corroboration of M. Brillat-Savarin's statement as to the value of
chocolate as an aid to digestion, we may quote from one of Mme. de
Sévigné's letters to her daughter:
"I took chocolate night before last to digest my dinner, in order to
have a good supper. I took some yesterday for nourishment, so as to be
able to fast until night. What I consider amusing about chocolate is
that it acts according to the wishes of the one who takes it."
Chocolate appears to have been highly valued as a remedial agent by the
leading physicians of that day. Christoph Ludwig Hoffman wrote a
treatise entitled, "Potus Chocolate," in which he recommended it in many
diseases, and instanced the case of Cardinal Richelieu, who, he stated,
was cured of general atrophy by its use.
A French officer who served in the West Indies for a period of fifteen
years, during the early part of the last century, wrote, as the result
of his personal observations, a treatise on "The Natural History of
Chocolate, Being a distinct and Particular Account of the Cacao Tree,
its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and
Medicinal Virtues of its Fruit," which received the approbation of the
Regent of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, and which was translated and
published in London, in 1730. After describing the different methods of
raising and curing the fruit and preparing it for food (which it is not
worth while to reproduce here, as the methods have essentially changed
since that time), he goes on to demonstrate, as the result of actual
experiment, that chocolate is a substance "very temperate, very
nourishing, and of easy digestion; very proper to repair the exhausted
spirits and decayed strength; and very suitable to preserve the health
and prolong the lives of old men....
"I could produce several instances," he says, "in favor of this
excellent nourishment; but I shall content myself with two only, equally
certain and decisive, in proof of its goodness. The first is an
experiment of chocolate's being taken for the only nourishment--made by
a surgeon's wife of Martinico. She had lost, by a very deplorable
accident, her lower jaw, which reduced her to such a condition that she
did not know how to subsist. She was not capable of taking anything
solid, and not rich enough to live upon jellies and nourishing broths.
In this strait she determined to take three dishes of chocolate,
prepared after the manner of the country, one in the morning, one at
noon, and one at night. There chocolate is nothing else but cocoa
kernels dissolved in hot water, with sugar, and seasoned with a bit of
cinnamon. This new way of life succeeded so well that she has lived a
long while since, more lively and robust than before this accident.
"I had the second relation from a gentleman of Martinico, and one of my
friends not capable of a falsity. He assured me that in his neighborhood
an infant of four months old unfortunately lost his nurse, and its
parents not being able to put it to another, resolved, through
necessity, to feed it with chocolate. The success was very happy, for
the infant came on to a miracle, and was neither less healthy nor less
vigorous than those who are brought up by the best nurses.
"Before chocolate was known in Europe, good old wine was called the milk
of old men; but this title is now applied with greater reason to
chocolate, since its use has become so common that it has been perceived
that chocolate is, with respect to them, what milk is to infants. In
reality, if one examines the nature of chocolate a little, with respect
to the constitution of aged persons, it seems as though the one was made
on purpose to remedy the defects of the other, and that it is truly the
panacea of old age."
The three associated beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee are known to the
French as _aromatic_ drinks. Each of these has its characteristic aroma.
The fragrance and flavor are so marked that they cannot be imitated by
any artificial products, although numerous attempts have been made in
regard to all three. Hence the detection of adulteration is not a
difficult matter. Designing persons, aware of the extreme difficulty of
imitating these substances, have undertaken to employ lower grades, and,
by manipulation, copy, as far as may be, the higher sorts. Every one
knows how readily tea, and coffee, for that matter, will take up odors
and flavors from substances placed near them. This is abundantly
exemplified in the country grocery or general store, where the teas and
coffees share in the pervasive fragrance of the cheese and kerosene. But
perhaps it is not so widely understood that some of these very teas and
coffees had been artificially flavored or corrected before they reached
their destination in this country.
Cacao lends itself very readily to such preliminary treatment. In a
first-class article, the beans should be of the highest excellence; they
should be carefully grown on the plantation and there prepared with
great skill, arriving in the factory in good condition. In the factory
they should simply receive the mechanical treatment requisite to
develop their high and attractive natural flavor and fragrance. They
should be most carefully shelled after roasting and finely ground
without concealed additions. This is the process in all honest
manufactories of the cacao products.
Now, as a matter of fact, in the preparation of many of the cacao
products on the market, a wholly different course has been pursued.
Beans of poor quality are used, because of their cheapness, and in some
instances they are only imperfectly, if at all, shelled before grinding.
Chemical treatment is relied on to correct in part the odor and taste of
such inferior goods, and artificial flavors, other than the time-honored
natural vanilla and the like, are added freely. The detection of such
imposition is easy enough to the expert, but is difficult to the novice;
therefore the public is largely unable to discriminate between the good
and the inferior, and it is perforce compelled to depend almost entirely
on the character and reputation of the manufacturer.
A distinguished London Physician, in giving some hints concerning the
proper preparation of cocoa, says:
"Start with a pure cocoa of undoubted quality and excellence of
manufacture, and which bears the name of a respectable firm. This point
is important, for there are many cocoas on the market which have been
doctored by the addition of alkali, starch, malt, kola, hops, etc."
Baker's Breakfast Cocoa is absolutely pure, and, being ground to an
extraordinary degree of fineness, is highly soluble. The analyst of the
Massachusetts State Board of Health states in his recent valuable work
on "Food Inspection and Analysis," that the treatment of cocoa with
alkali for the purpose of producing a more perfect emulsion is
objectionable, even if not considered as a form of adulteration. Cocoa
thus treated is generally darker in color than the pure article. The
legitimate means, he says, for making it as soluble as possible is to
pulverize it very fine, so that particles remain in even suspension and
form a smooth paste.
That is the way the Baker Cocoa is treated. It has received the Grand
Prize--the highest award ever given in this country, and altogether 52
highest awards in Europe and America.