Chocolate, discovered by Christopher Columbus, is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known, a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water".
The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor. The beans are dried, then cleaned, and then roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor.
Chocolate has become one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes have become traditional on certain holidays: chocolate bunnies and eggs are popular on Easter, chocolate coins on Hanukkah, Santa Claus and other holiday symbols on Christmas, and chocolate hearts or chocolate in heart-shaped boxes on Valentine's Day. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, to produce chocolate milk and hot chocolate.
Sources: http://www.aphrodite-chocolates.co.uk/history_chocolate.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment