0_Wizard
I just love chocolate! One interesting thing about chocolate is that has been made for at least three millennia. It was used in Mesoamerica!
Cacao has been cultivated by many cultures for at least three millennia in Mesoamerica.
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Chocolate
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Chocolate
Chocolate is a typically sweet, usually brown food preparation of "Theobroma cacao" seeds, roasted and ground. It is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, or used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods. Cacao has been cultivated by many cultures for at least three millennia in Mesoamerica. The earliest evidence of use traces to the Olmecs (Mexico), with evidence of chocolate beverages dating back to 1900 BCE. In fact, the majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Maya and Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as "xocolātl" , a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water".
History of Mexico
The history of Mexico, a country in the southern portion of North America, covers a period of more than three millennia. First populated more than 13,000 years ago, the territory had complex indigenous civilizations before being conquered and colonized by the Spanish in the 16th century. One of the important aspects of Mesoamerican civilizations was their development of a form of writing, so that Mexico's written history stretches back hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519. This era before the arrival of Europeans is called variously the prehispanic era or the precolumbian era.
Hot chocolate
Hot chocolate, also known as hot cocoa, drinking chocolate or just cocoa is a heated beverage consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and usually a sweetener. Hot chocolate may be topped with whipped cream. Hot chocolate made with melted chocolate is sometimes called drinking chocolate, characterized by less sweetness and a thicker consistency. The first chocolate beverage is believed to have been created by the Mayans around 2,500-3,000 years ago, and a cocoa beverage was an essential part of Aztec culture by 1400 AD, by which they referred to as xocōlātl.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is an important historical region and cultural area in the Americas, extending from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, and within which pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is one of six areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently, and the second in the Americas along with Norte Chico (Caral-Supe) in present-day northern coastal Peru. As an uncultural swine area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures.
History of chocolate in Spain
The history of chocolate in Spain is part of the culinary history of Spain as understood since the 16th century, when the colonization of the Americas began and the cocoa plant was discovered in regions of Mesoamerica, until the present. After the conquest of Mexico, cocoa as a commodity travelled by boat from the port of Nueva España to the Spanish coast. The first such voyage to Europe occurred at an unknown date in the 1520s. However it was only in the 17th century that regular trade began from the port of Veracruz, opening a maritime trade route that would supply the new demand from Spain, and later from other European countries.
Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador and Nicaragua. The area is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity containing several hundred different languages and seven major language families. Mesoamerica is also an area of high linguistic diffusion in that long-term interaction among speakers of different languages through several millennia has resulted in the convergence of certain linguistic traits across disparate language families. The Mesoamerican sprachbund is commonly referred to as the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
History of chocolate
The history of chocolate begins in Mesoamerica. Fermented beverages made from chocolate date back to 1900 BC. The Aztecs believed that cacao seeds were the gift of Quetzalcoatl, the god of wisdom, and the seeds once had so much value that they were used as a form of currency. Originally prepared only as a drink, chocolate was served as a bitter, from a liquid, mixed with spices or corn puree. It was believed to have aphrodisiac powers and to give the drinker strength. Today, such drinks are also known as "Chilate" and are made by locals in the South of Mexico. After its arrival to Europe in the sixteenth century, sugar was added to it, rendering it an aphrodisiac, and it became popular throughout society, first among the ruling classes and then among the common people.
1_Apprentice
That is very interesting! I am actually allergic to chocolate but I love Ice cream.