chocolateclass2021

[chocolateclass2021]

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Image source: https://www.mybakingaddiction.com/chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/?utm_campaign=yummly&utm_medium=yummly&utm_source=yummly

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: about 24 cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups dark chocolate chips, divided use

1 cup Gold Medal all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a microwave-safe bowl, melt 2/3 cup dark chocolate chips on medium power for 30 seconds; stir. Morsels may retain some of their original shape. Continue to microwave and stir in 15 second intervals until chocolate chips are just melted. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy; about 3 minutes. Add melted chocolate and mix until thoroughly combined. Add egg and vanilla extract, mixing until well blended, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture, mixing just until blended. Stir in remaining 1 cup morsels. Using a medium cookie scoop (1 1/2 tablespoons) drop dough 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets.

4. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes until tops have a cracked appearance. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool completely

Recipe source: https://www.mybakingaddiction.com/chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/?utm_campaign=yummly&utm_medium=yummly&utm_source=yummly 

When thinking of a recipe to write about for this assignment I thought about my baking career. I fell in love with baking when I had to bake a batch of cupcakes to help support the dance team I was on. Though cupcakes were the first thing I officially baked, chocolate chips were the first thing I baked from scratch. They hold a special place in my heart for this and I chose to highlight my favorite variation of this treat with the chocolate chocolate chip cookie. While the traditional cookie does not highlight chocolate in all of its forms and the chocolate chip cookie has chocolate bits in various shapes depending on the recipe, chocolate is highlighted in two ways when you look at the chocolate chocolate chip cookie as it is included in the base of the actual cookie and you need the chocolate morsels for it to truly be a chocolate chip cookie. 

When looking at the history of chocolate chocolate chip cookies we must first look at the history of cookies as a whole. Historians believe that the first kind of cookies were made in Persia around the 7th Century A.D. when cake batter would be tested in small amounts which created little handheld cakes close to the cookies we know today. The recipes used by the Persians were spread across Europe all the way to Spain when the Muslims invaded. With other historical mass movements like the Crusades and the spice trades along the silk road these recipes made their way all across the Eurasian continent. The recipes became popular amongst those who got to try them and according to “What's cooking in America: a history of cookies” “By the end of the 14th century, one could buy little filled wafers on the streets of Paris. Renaissance cookbooks were rich in cookie recipes.”1 Cookies were a popular baked good for the times as they could be baked with simple ingredients, mostly flour and sugar, and they would keep on long journeys. The rigorous process it took to become a baker in those times ensured that people were receiving a quality product. Another advantage to cookies is that you could make a variety of different kinds of cookies by adding or subtracting some ingredients, but for the most part the key ingredients stayed the same. 

As chocolate chip cookies find their origins in the United States one must understand the origins of the cookie in the country and the variations that helped transform it into what we know it as today. The European immigrants who sailed across the Atlantic to establish the English colonies in the North Eastern parts of what is now the United states brought over their versions of cookies that were full of butter. With westward expansion and access to different ingredients cookies evolved over the many years to incorporate many of these ingredients and as technological advances grew so did cookie innovation. The first chocolate chip cookies were baked in 1937 in Whitman, Massachusetts at the Toll House restaurant. Restaurant owner Ruth Graves Wakefield was baking her favorite recipe for butter cookies and did not have the required dark chocolate to melt into the mixture.She used a chocolate bar she had thinking that it would melt in the same way as dark chocolate would, but instead the pieces stayed whole and the result was a cookie with chocolate morsels embedded in it. Word spread of this new creation and Wakefield’s cookies were even featured on the Betty Crocker radio program. Nestle approached Wakefield and they came to an agreement where they would print the recipe for the cookies on the Nestle chocolate bars which further spread the popularity of the chocolate chip cookie. 

Cookies were enjoyed by people of all socioeconomic status because of the ingredients involved. Flour was an ingredient most had as it was used in most breads and other staples and although sugar was a luxury most could not afford at various times throughout history common citizens were able to use other spices as sweeteners in their cookies such as ginger or even rose water.2 With the Industrial revolution came easier access to mass produced goods such as flour and sugars. The invention of the home oven and access to the many different recipes for cookies led many people to baking their own goods at home and according to “The Best Ever Cookie Collection” “Ninety percent of home bakers bake cookies, making them the most common home baked good. Half of all home baked cookies are chocolate chip.”3 This shows how popular cookies are to make for the common folk as they do not require too intense of a workload to make. The percentage of these cookies being baked that are chocolate chip cookies also show how popular that variation is to the general public. Chocolate chip cookies became widely accepted by those who tried them and are even so popular in the current day that these cookies are the official state cookies for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The versatility of the cookie and the flexibility in ingredients that can be used to bake a cookie are very accessible to many different groups too. These recipes can be modified based on dietary restrictions and allergies due to the variety of ingredients we now have at our disposal and almost anyone can enjoy a variation of this variation on the original cookies. 

Footnotes/Bibliography

1. https://whatscookingamerica.net/history/cookiehistory.htm

2. http://www.best-ever-cookie-collection.com/history-of-cookies.html 

3. http://www.best-ever-cookie-collection.com/history-of-cookies.html 

[chocolateclass2021]

Chocolate Futures

Image Source: https://www.commodafrica.com/04-09-2015-hausse-de-10-des-ventes-fairtrade-en-2014

The popularity of chocolate has led to a massive increase in the production and consumption of chocolate. Chocolate has shaped various aspects of society such as how we celebrate and how certain groups and people are seen, but how chocolate affects the world as a whole and the people that produce it is an issue that is being considered more often. The Industrial Revolution and the advertising boom of advertising chocolate companies helped the consumers divorce their thoughts on the producers and focus solely on the product, but that becomes less and less the case as time goes on.  With the amount of chocolate being consumed around the world going up cacao producers should be seeing more development happening for themselves and the areas around them but a number of factors such as farm size, poor protection from the industry, lack of governmental support, and the effects climate change on production have left producers with minimal gains and have them still struggling in their lives. There are various organizations, such as fair trade organizations, that are working to help these farmers and are achieving these goals, but as with everything these organizations are imperfect and come with a bevy of their own problems. 

A way these farmers and other cacao producers have been able to make things better for themselves was forming fair trade organizations so they would get their fair share for their production and be able to make a living. Previously cacao farmers were taken advantage of by the companies that bought from them as they received a small percentage of the chocolate sales and these prices fluctuated based on the markets. Farmers rights have more stability as they are paid a minimum based on a set price or market value meaning they have less to worry about. These organizations are also helping to make sure that chocolate producers are not committing human rights violations like child labor. Consumer interests are also taken into consideration when these organizations get involved as they make sure these farmers and plantations are using methods of growing and harvesting cacao that will not harm consumers with uses of harmful pesticides or other harmful additives. Funds are raised by these organizations that help benefit the communities these farmers live in as ways to help them pay their workers fair wages, bring improved infrastructure to these communities, and even bring medical care to those areas where it is much needed. 

These organizations have good intentions, but they are not without their problems. While these organizations help farmers get better prices for their cacao they cannot guarantee that chocolate companies will purchase their needed cacao from them. If the cacao is sold to these companies there is also no guarantee that the cacao will sell at a better price than what the farmers would have gotten if they were not a part of these fair trade organizations. Another problem is that while fair trade organizations are trying to regulate these farms for the betterment of every party involved they do not cover the costs for farmers to meet the standards it takes to get to certification status. Farmers may have to pay for new equipment, a new workforce, and other alternatives to keep up with these standards which will make their financial situations worse. There are not enough of these organizations to keep track of which farmers have official certification and those who are just using certification as an advertising tactic. This confuses the market and makes things harder for the farmers who are actually certified. 

While fair trade organizations do not hold all of the answers they seem to still do more good than bad. They want to help out farmers, workers, and consumers and make sure chocolate production and consumption is ethical and helpful to all parties involved. They are trying to help create a more sustainable and ethical future for chocolate and cacao. There are still a lot of issues to work out and there needs to be a widespread acceptance of these practices to realize real change, but with more organizations that want to help on the horizon the future for cacao and chocolate looks bright. 

Bibliography: Lecture 8: Chocolate Futures: Fair Trade and Sustainability 

[chocolateclass2021]

Chocolate Consumption

Image Source: https://irishpubemporium.com/product/vintageearly-1900s-frys-chocolate-advertising-mirror/

With the production of chocolate ramping up in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution and the many different companies offering a variety of chocolate based products there was a flood of these items on the market. Chocolate companies needed a way to differentiate themselves from the rest while establishing chocolate as a product the masses needed to consume and they found they were able to do this by the various levels involved in advertising. From their packaging to actual advertisements placed in the media. The focus became less focused on the actual product of chocolate these companies were selling and the chocolate game became more about image and perception than anything else. These advertisements and tactics had a profound effect on society as they changed society’s connections to holidays around the world, shaped people’s perception of the consumption of chocolate by dissociating it from the actual production of the product, and helped promote various racial and sexist stereotypes all in the name of making sales. 

Once chocolate became a product that was consumed by the general public there was a demand for it that helped spawn many chocolate making companies and because of the world’s desire for chocolate that let these companies shape how we celebrated holidays, special occasions, and how we perceived things in life related to chocolate. Today we associate chocolate with many different events and holidays in life: Valentines day, Halloween, Anniversaries, just to name a few, and this was all a marketing ploy by chocolate companies to make consistent sales for these events. By having people associate chocolate with feelings of love and comfort through advertising and in some cases, like Cadbury employing the use of heart shaped packaging in the 1800s, the actual packaging the chocolate came in. These campaigns were successful in shaping how society thought about chocolate and there are many instances where chocolate companies used that to their advantage. 

To help sell their chocolate products, chocolate companies would help reinforce various kinds of stereotypes in their advertising to get consumers to think a certain way about their products and make them more likely to buy them. Chocolate companies would aim their ads at different groups to help sell their chocolates based on how they wanted the consumers to feel and these tactics helped promote stereotypes and helped ingrain them in society’s way of thinking. They appealed to families by including advertisements that associated chocolates with morals, they showed women in traditionally feminine house roles such as house wife and mother to promote chocolate as a family product. They appealed to men's masculinity in other ads by using stereotypes associated with masculinity and implied that men who consumed chocolate would fit the mold created in these ads. They used racist stereotypes of exotic foreign lands and peoples to appeal to those who were interested in a product that was different from those they usually consumed. While these were all effective tactics that made people buy chocolate at higher rates the use of these stereotypes helped ingrain them further into the consciousness of society. 

By creating a field for competition chocolate companies would use any tactic they could to create an advantage for themselves with consumers. They exploited consumers' weaknesses and biases for their own gains. They changed the way society thought about various events and situations and colored how society saw chocolate. 

Bibliography: Lecture 7:Chocolate in Modern Times: Consumption 

[chocolateclass2021]

Modern Production

Image Source: https://www.dw.com/en/ghana-dying-cocoa-plantations/av-47408729

After the Industrial Revolution many chocolate companies were able to spring up because of the advances made in chocolate production. There was great upheaval going on in the world though especially in the countries where cacao was traditionally produced. Civil wars, unsteady government presence, and other similar factors led these chocolate manufacturers to seek out other means and locations of growing and harvesting cacao. The demand for chocolate had risen too as the general public now had a taste for the delicacy and were used to having easy access to these chocolate products. The chocolate companies looked for the right climates to grow cacao and they ended up shifting production from mostly Latin American territories to Africa. Africa has the right climate for producing cacao and there was a workforce that these companies were ready to exploit which led to many human rights violations that are still happening to this very day in some cases. The changes in Latin American countries left them unstable in the eyes of these chocolate companies which facilitated the shift to Africa and with this shift came the inhumane conditions and practices the companies implemented on their African workers, who were in some cases, children. 

Latin American countries were, for most of their history of interaction with the Europeans, colonies of the various European powers, but with the Industrial Revolution came change and from that time period on most of these countries fought and won their independence. These countries were able to be integrated into the global trade economy because of their cacao production, but their newfound control over cacao in these regions led to the heavy consumer European countries to seek their cacao elsewhere. The European consumers did not completely trust the newer governments or lack of stable governments in some of these countries and they did not like the fact that they did not have control over the plantations and prices of cacao produced in Latin America so they weighed their options and started their search for new places to produce the very important plant. 

With the Latin American countries gaining independence and less susceptible to the control of European countries these leaders sought other areas to grow cacao and turned their sights towards Africa as land to colonize and cultivate cacao under their control. The European powers had a conference where they divided up Africa between them and then these countries started exploiting their colony’s citizens in various ways to make them produce cacao. France for example brought in foreign workers and worked them to death and they taxed the citizens of their holdings in a manner where they were forced to grow the labor intensive crop. Portugal resorted to slavery under a different name to get their cacao produced. The Cadbury chocolate company received most of their cacao from these Portuguese slave plantations and when the public asked them to do something to help conditions in these plantations the Cadbury company decided to investigate. While the report agreed with other reports of the abhorrent conditions of these plantations the owner of the company William Cadbury tried his best to bury and delay these findings. Cadbury ended up switching their source of cacao to their own plantations in other parts of Africa, but that was not the only instance of companies using exploitative tactics in the cacao arena in Africa. There are a lot of big companies that use cacao grown in Africa and according to UNICEF reports most of the labor used in these small farms is child labor and the children are paid at much lower rates than adults. Using child labor is against the law in most places and at the rates they are paid it is borderline slavery, but it is still a practice used by these companies that is allowed by the laws in the countries these companies are based because the cacao production is happening in Africa and not the company’s home country. 

The emergence of Latin America as independent countries and players in the global trade economy changed the way chocolate was produced. With this newfound control European countries moved production to Africa as a means of controlling cacao production. This movement led to a regression in practices on cacao plantations where cheap labor was branded under different names when essentially it was borderline or outright slavery. 

Bibliography: Lecture 6: Cacao in Modern Times: Production

[chocolateclass2021]

Technological Revolution

Image source: https://ip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Picture1.png

The Industrial revolution was a very important time period for the world that led to much innovation in a multitude of different industries. Technology and production grew at an exponential rate which allowed for vast improvements in the quality of life for everyone and for mass production of goods to be possible so many people could enjoy many goods and services that were only obtainable for the richest people and the people who held the highest status in society. Chocolate was no different than these other goods and because of the advances made during the Industrial Revolution chocolate was able to become mass produced and became more widely available to the general public. Without the industrial revolution and the advancements made in chocolate technology the world’s consumption of chocolate and society as a whole would be very different than that of what we experience today and as always though new items and inventions came from this time there were ties to the origins of chocolate too. 

During this time a machine was developed that was able to extract and reduce the fat of the butter from cacao beans which allowed chocolate to be able to be served in a solid form for the first time when used in conjunction with another machine that took this butter and mixed it with other ingredients creating a sweeter product to which we are more familiar in current times. There were many steps to these processes and bumps along the way as various chocolatiers tried to refine the process and product of chocolate combining many different powders and other various ingredients in many different machines producing varying results each time. These concoctions led to cocoa powder and chocolate bars and helped lead to a product that could last on store shelves and please consumers in looks, texture, and taste.   

When looking at the origins of Cacao and chocolate you have to recognize the relationship religion had with these items. Whether it be the reverence and connection of the gods to the originators of chocolate consumption or those who used religion to control who was able to consume chocolate when it migrated to Europe. A similar connection can be seen in this time period to the Quaker people and chocolate production during the Industrial revolution. Quakers wanted to endorse chocolate as a moral and more proper alternative for consumption than alcohol. With a reputation for good quality products and being fair when it came to transactions the chocolate sold by the Quakers was highly trusted and helped chocolate gain the reputation it has to this very day. 

Chocolate and the world were changed greatly by the Industrial Revolution. The way chocolate was consumed and produced went through many iterations before landing on what we are familiar with seeing in out stores today. The intersection of religion and chocolate gave the world new ways to enjoy chocolate yet again and these religious entrepreneurs were able to make these innovations with the help of the technologies that came out of the Industrial Revolution and a drive to make chocolate a better product and more accessible to the masses. 

Bibliography: Lecture 5: Chocolate Factory:Modern Manufacturing

[chocolateclass2021]

Colonial Production

Image Source:   Atlantic Slave Trade (Legend). Images, n.d. https://jstor.org/stable/community.13560807.

The first cash crop in the Latin Americas was cacao and even though in the long run it was the second most important crop it was still important enough to help impact the global economy as a whole and help the advancement of various technologies in the world. With the popularity of chocolate growing in Europe and other parts in the Americas it was a race between the European super powers to see who could obtain the most land to cultivate cacao beans to meet chocolate demands and capitalize financially on the chocolate boom. As these countries obtained these lands they needed more labor to help grow and harvest these cacao crops as it is a very intensive crop to gather. As a solution these European leaders decided to exploit the natives in some cases or resort to slavery in other cases and although the practice of slavery is terrible, especially the way the Europeans implemented it, the trade and economics that came from these practices led to many technological and economic advancements and, some argue, contributed greatly to the eventual industrial revolution. 

Spain used the natives a slaves to help with the growing and harvesting of cacao in their territories, but they switched to a different, but still exploitative system, that was already in place when the king decided they should not go the slavery route with the natives. Slavery of Africans shipped over from Africa was however a means that was deemed acceptable by the Spanish, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English who all had territories and cacao holdings in the Americas. The system of trade that brought slaves over and took cacao across to Europe was referred to as the Triangular Trade because of the three main areas that took part, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. It was a complex system of trade that treated the African slaves horribly and had subhuman conditions on boats and the plantations and other work areas where the slaves ultimately ended up, but for the Europeans this system was the backbone of their economy and made every party who had a controlling interest involved very wealthy. With the profits of the trade of these goods, with cacao being paramount among them, this led to these countries focusing on making improvements in their own countries and finding better ways to make trade and agriculture easier by investing in technology. With this new found investment in technology these countries were able to start industrializing and start moving towards the future. 

Cacao was a very important crop to the European powers and because of this importance these countries found ways to advance for the sake of their countrymen and their economies. Though they were able to make these incredible advancements because of the trade system in place it cannot be forgotten that these systems and practices were built upon the mistreatment and enslavement of many human beings. The people who benefited from these practices were able to make much money and move technology forward multitudes, but it came at the cost of many lives for many generations. 

Bibliography: Lecture 4: Production in the Americas

[chocolateclass2021]

Colonial Consumption

Image source:  Paul Gavarni, European, and French, 1804-1866. Woman Chocolate Vendor. Images, n.d. https://jstor.org/stable/community.15666737.

Once cacao made its way to Europe it was consumed much as it had been consumed by the Europeans on the American continent and was then shaped closer to the chocolate we know today in way of how it was made and consumed. The use of cacao and its transformation into chocolate was widespread around Europe in these days starting in Spain before moving its way through Italy and beyond. It went from being mostly used as a bitter drink during religious ceremonies to a sweet drink to enjoy with peers and even saw its use in deserts. Though a lot of the way chocolate was used changed in its migration to Europe its use as a show of one's status in society stayed the same and its use in a patriarchal sense, even though different that how it as used for those devices before, was a call back to the roots of the use of cacao for battle. 

Cacao lost its status in the spiritual sense when it became chocolate in the European sense, but it kept its use as a symbol of prestige among those who were able to procure and consume it on the European continent. Cacao was becoming more important in Europe as the Europeans were developing a taste for it at a ravenous pace, but it still had to be imported from the Americas which made it expensive to buy and a luxury one had to wait many months for it to arrive. An example of this can be seen in how chocolate was consumed by the Portuguese during this period. Chocolate was so revered at this time that even the royal chocolatier was treated as a high member of the royal court. Many of the royal’s underlings would vie for the spot to serve them chocolate as to just be close to the delicacy and the splendor that came along with it. 

Chocolate consumption in various ways was rebranded to be seen as a masculine endeavor by the way women who consumed chocolate were seen and the establishment of coffee houses that were exclusively filled with men across England and France. Chocolate houses were places to drink but were also places where politics and other matters of the sort were discussed and these matters, because of society and the laws at the time, were exclusive to men. The religious sector of society also had a way of making sure the consumption of chocolate by women was looked down upon. There were various stories where women would be corrupted by chocolate and that this consumption would lead to murder and witchcraft if it were to become out of hand. 

Though Europeans had a different relationship to cacao and chocolate than those in the Americas who originated the chocolate, it became a big part of their culture. They also could not completely break away from the original uses of chocolate as they too used it as a status symbol. It also helped facilitate social life amongst the Europeans, mostly the men, as it had in the Americas, albeit in a very different manner. 

Bibliography: Lecture 3: Consumption in Europe and the Americas

Loveman, Kate. “The Introduction of Chocolate into England: Retailers, Researchers, and Consumers, 1640-1730.” Journal of Social History 47, no. 1 (2013): 27–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43306044.

Walker, Timothy “Cure or Confection? Chocolate in the Portuguese Royal Court and Colonial Hospitals 1580-1830 561-568

[chocolateclass2021]

Chocolate Encounters

Image source: vermeld op object prentmaker: Gunst, Philip van, and vermeld op object naar ontwerp van: Melder, J. Cortés Ontmoet Montezuma in Tenochtitlan, 1519. Images, n.d. https://jstor.org/stable/community.8583558.

Though there was a major transition in society when the Aztecs took over the lands of current day Mexico, Cacao still played an important part in the whole of society. The focus of this importance during this time period was from the spiritual and religious significance the plant played in the many creation and other mythical stories of the Mayans and the Olmecs to the physical attributes and uses of cacao. Though there was still a thought of cacao as a part of the religious world it was not the main focus of cacao in this time period especially when the Europeans started their conquest. In Mexica society, as with previous societies, cacao was used as a status symbol and helped dictate the flow of society and though the Europeans did not regard it as such at first they eventually understood where cacao fit into the Mexica culture.

As with previous societies the consumption of chocolate was seen as only for the elites as the cacao beans were used as currency and only those who had the status and the means could consume the beans instead of having to use them for trade. The need of cacao and the importance of the bean drove what the Mexicas would do and though they could grow the plant on their own lands in limited quantities they sought out to conquer other communities that had better environmental conditions for growing cocoa. Another advantage for conquering these lands for the Mexicas were that they would hold control over and be able to strengthen the already existing trade routes to make it easier to have control over the cacao trade. While cacao was used as a luxury item that was consumed by the elite and used in many religious and social ceremonies it was also good to use as currency as they were valuable, easy to transfer, and hard to counterfeit. 

When the Europeans arrived they did not understand the importance of cacao or how these beans could be used overall. When Cortez was introduced to Montezuma he and his crew were given the traditional chocolate drink as a show of status by the emperor and though they did not enjoy the drink they saw what the value of the bean was to the locals and took note of it. As the Europeans integrated themselves into the Aztec culture and started a conquest of their own they got used to the consumption aspects of cacao, but because of their belief in Christianity they were very adamant that the native peoples stop their use of cacao in religious ways even going as far as connecting the various ways cacao was used in ceremonies or consumed in other ways to various sinning behaviors. Even though at first the Europeans did not completely understand the allure and consumption of cacao they eventually fell under the spell of it as they added their own ingredients to make it more palatable for them. They became so enamored with their recipes for consuming cacao that the  religious officials for their churches had to bring the same messaging connecting cacao to sinning to the Europeans. This did not curb the European use of cacao though and instead they found other ways to improve on the bean for their tastes and would help popularize it further around the world. 

The Europeans saw how the Mexicas regarded cacao and they changed cacao to fit their own needs. It was seen as a status and religious symbol for the Mexicas and it was changed in many ways by the Europeans when they made it over to the Americas. 

Bibliography: Lecture 2: Mexicas and Spainards

Orellana, Margarita de, Quentin Pope, Sonia Corcuera Mancera, José Luis Trueba Lara, Jana Schroeder, Laura Esquivel, Jill Derais, et al. “CHOCOLATE II: Mysticism and Cultural Blends.” Artes de México, no. 105 (2012): 73–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24319003.

Orellana, Margarita de, Clara Marín, Salvador Reyes Equiguas, Quentin Pope, Anahí Luna, Martha Few, Johanna Kufer, et al. “Chocolate III: RITUAL, ART AND MEMORY.” Artes de México, no. 110 (2013): 72–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24318995.

[chocolateclass2021]

Cacao Origins

Image source:   Guatemala, department of El Peten, Ik’ Emblem Glyph site, Maya culture, North American, Central American, Mesoamerican, Mayan, North American, Central American, and Guatemalan. Cylindrical Vessel with Ritual Ball Game Scene. Images, n.d. https://jstor.org/stable/community.15030417.

Cocoa was found, cultivated, and was used in many different ways by the Mesoamericans where it became an important part of their social, economic, and religious practices. The impact of this plant can be found everywhere you look when examining the stories, artifacts, and practices of these cultures. It was especially seen in the myths of the Mayan and Olmec peoples and how high it was regarded as a status symbol in these cultures. 

Religious use of cacao can be seen in the religious ceremonies and through the various creation stories and other religious stories seen throughout Mayan and Olmec societies specifically. A specific story that has ties to cacao and the symbol the Mayans used to represent it when inscribing urns, cups, and other various works of art and ceremonial objects are that of the Ahpu Hero Twins who interacted with gods in their various incarnations as they would be killed and resurrected in many of these stories. The second incarnation where these twins were reborn as fish is tied directly to the fish symbol used to represent cacao and led to the cacao drink being seen as a drink of resurrection used in various religious ceremonies. The drinking of the cacao drink was tied to the twins and the life tree by the head of one of the twins being put onto the tree by death in one of the myths and later transforming into a fruit that was later hallowed out and used to drink the juices, or blood, of other fruit that sprouted from the tree of life. Drinking this liquid in this manner would have made them feel more connected to the deities and characters in these mythological stories and feel more created to all of existence since they were drinking the nectar from the tree of life by the way of consuming their cacao drink. 

Cocoa was used as a status symbol as the trees were only owned by the highest levels of society and pictures of the trees and plants were used to decorate tombs, caskets, and other important structures and items for these elites also. The cacao drink was a delicacy and very luxurious treat that was drunk in many important situations especially in instances of important political and economic dealings. Archaeologists who studied the bowls and cups found in Mayan cities were able to determine that the drinks were made and consumed at important feasts and events in these societies which included marriages, military victories, and of course funerals. Cacao beans were very valuable and were used as the most expensive of offerings to hosts of these ceremonies and in later periods they were used as a way to show off wealth as status symbols when the times were turning more tumultuous. When the Aztecs came to rule and new trade routes were extended through current day Mexico, Central, and South America there was a boom in growing cacao trees and the seeds were used as a highly valued and sought after currency with great care taken into the storing of the beans. There were different values to different beans in that time as there were a variety of cacao trees that were grown at the time so the value of the beans were determined by size and type. 

The importance of cacao to these people cannot be understated. It played a part in every facet of society and was held in such high regard it was involved in their gods and their highest rungs of society. It was respected and held with such high regard that it highly impacted how people were seen and their relationship with the gods and myths they believed in. 

Bibliography: Lecture 1: Cacao Tree and Mesoamerican Ancestors

Orellana, Margarita de, Richard Moszka, Timothy Adès, Valentine Tibère, J.M. Hoppan, Philippe Nondedeo, Nezahualcóyotl, et al. “Chocolate: Cultivation and Culture in Pre-Hispanic Mexico.” Artes de México, no. 103 (2011): 65–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24318969.