HERE IT IS!

My foray into blogging. A friend and I were in Chicago in the Fall of 2008, it was particularly cold and rainy on the day that we set out to explore the windy city. At one point in the day I exclaimed that all I wanted was the world’s best cup of hot chocolate. Not long after we stumbled into this cup little café called Ethel’s, where they served hot chocolate voted the best in Chicago. It would do. It was great. There is a sad epilogue to the story … research has found that most of the Ethel shops in Chicago have been closing since April of ’09. Sad, Sad, Sad.

In thinking about holiday gifts this year I was looking for specialty hot chocolate flavors (specifically searching to find a lime hot chocolate) and stumbled onto a great site where I learned that hot chocolate has a history and that there is a difference between hot chocolate as we know it in the powder version and drinking chocolates. "Drinking Chocolates" are made from real chocolate as opposed to "Hot Cocoa" which is made from cocoa powder (the powdery remains of chocolate liquor after cocoa butter is removed). When you purchase a package of drinking chocolate it will often be in the form of chocolate shavings or chunks. Drinking chocolates are not instant like hot cocoa. You must add hot milk, cream, or water to the chocolate in order for it to melt and be whisked together. Because of the higher cocoa butter content, drinking chocolates will also be richer and often thicker than hot cocoa.

Suddenly there is a whole other world of chocolate drinks to consider trying. I have also included some information on the history of hot chocolate that I found at the website http://whatscookingamerica.net/Beverage/HotChocolate.htm

Please notice the picture I included. It seemed appropriate for the topic. The hot chocolate looks like it is floating in the clouds … nigh unto heaven? Enjoy!

Rediscover True Hot Chocolate - History of Hot Chocolate

There is a difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate. The terms are often used interchangeably, but technically they are as different as white chocolate and bittersweet chocolate. Hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder, which is chocolate pressed free of all its richness, meaning the fat of cocoa butter. Hot chocolate is made from chocolate bars melted into cream. It is a rich decadent drink.

The original hot cocoa recipe was a mixture of ground cocoa beans, water, wine, and peppers. It didn't take long for Spaniards to begin heating the mixture and sweetening it with sugar. After being introduced in England, milk was added to the after dinner treat.
The word chocolate is said to derive from the Mayan word xocoatl; cocoa from the Aztec word cacahuatl. The Mexican Indian word chocolat comes from a combination of the terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water"); as early chocolate was only consumed in beverage form. Chocolate has been drunk as a beverage for thousands of years.

Chocolate grows on trees, appearing in its raw state as melon-like pods on the 40-60 foot tall trees known botanically as "Theobroma cacao," which means "food of the gods." This tropical tree has grown wild in Central America since prehistoric times. It also grows in South America, Africa and part of Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pineapple. Inside the fruit are the tree's seeds, also known as cocoa beans.

Archeologists tell us that the Olmecs, the oldest civilization of the Americas (1500-400 BC), were probably the first users of cacao, followed by the Maya, who consumed cacao-based drinks made with beans from their plantations in the Chontalpa region of what is now eastern Tabasco. A drink called 'chocolatl' made from roasted cocoa beans, water and a little spice, was their most important use but cocoa beans were also valued as a currency.

Because cocoa beans were valuable, they were given as gifts at ceremonies such as a child's coming of age and at religious ceremonies. The Maya had very many complicated religious beliefs with many gods. Merchants often traded cocoa beans for other commodities , cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers. Maya farmers transported their cocoa beans to market by canoe or in large baskets strapped to their backs, and wealthy merchants, employing porters to carry their wares, ventured as far as Mexico the land of the Aztecs, so introducing them to the much prized cocoa beans.

1502 - Although Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the first European to taste cocoa in Nicaragua, on his fourth voyage to the New World, returned to Europe with the first cocoa beans. No one knew what to do with them and they were dismissed in favor of other trade goods. By the time the Spanish invaded Mexico in the 16th century the Aztecs had created a powerful empire: their armies were supreme in Mexico.

1519 - The voyage which led Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), Spanish conquistadores, to discover Mexico and the Aztec civilization began in 1517 when he set sail from Cuba with 11 ships and 600 men, all seeking fame and fortune in the 'New World'. Landing on the Mexican coast near Veracruz, he decided to make his way to Tenochtitlan to see for himself the famed riches of Emperor Montezuma and the Aztec empire.

It was Montezuma (1466-1520), Emperor of Mexico, who introduced Hernam Cortes to his favourite drink 'chocolatl' served in a golden goblet. American historian William Hickling's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma: "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an aphrodisiac. Cortes wrote a letter to Charles V of Spain calling chocolate "The divine drink which builds up resistance & fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits man to walk for a whole day without food." When Cortes returned to Spain in 1528 he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and chocolate drink making equipment.

Late 1500s - Introduction of chocolate to Europe. According to the article From Aphrodisiac to Health Food: A Cultural History of Chocolate, by Louis E. Grivetti:
While many recent texts and websites provide readers with a precise year and a specific event whereby chocolate was first introduced to Europe, food historians always debate “firsts” and the so-called “first” arrival of chocolate in Europe is a subject of conjecture to say nothing of myth. Chocolate may have been introduced to Europe via the Spanish court in 1544, when Dominican friars are said to have brought Mayan nobles to meet Prince Philip. I suspect, though, that this oft-cited statement is probably more allegorical than precise. It is correct to say, however, that within a century of the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico, both culinary and medicinal uses of chocolate had spread from Mexico to Spain, France, England, and elsewhere within Western Europe (entering through Spain and Portugal) and probably North America as well (entering through the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, Florida).

1631 - In 1631, the first recipe for a chocolate drink was published in Spain by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, an Andalusian physician, in his book, Curioso tratado de la naturaleza y calidad del chocolate (A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate). This was the first work to deal exclusively with chocolate and cacao. Don Antonio is said to have lived for some time in the West Indies. Since he was a doctor, he pays a great deal of attention to the dietary aspects of chocolate and was concerned with the psychological as well as the physical effects of the drink. He says, "Chocolate is healthy. It makes the drinker 'Fat, and Corpulent, faire and Aimiable'. It was an aphrodisiac. In women it caused fertility but eased delivery, etc., etc." The ingredients in the recipe were:
"Take one hundred cocoa beans, two chillies, a handful of anise seed and two of vanilla (two pulverized Alexandria roses can be substituted), two drams of cinnamon, one dozen almonds and the same amount of hazelnuts, half a pound of white sugar and enough annatto to give some color. And there you have the king of chocolates."

1643 - It didn't take long for Spaniards to begin heating the mixture and sweetening it with sugar. Soon 'chocolate' became a fashionable drink enjoyed by the rich in Spain. As the Spanish royalty intermarried with other European Royalty, cocoa was given as a dowry. In 1643, when the Spanish Princess Maria Theresa (1638-1683), was betrothed to Louis XIV (1638–1715) of France, she gave her fiancé an engagement gift of chocolate, packaged in an elegantly ornate chest. A royal chocolate maker was appointed and chocolate drinking became the rage.

1648 - Thomas Gage (1603-1656), an English Dominican friar and traveler, tried to intervene with the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico over the congregation drinking chocolate during services. The women were fond of chocolate and turned church services into a coffeehouse. The Bishop tried to end this, and was consequently found dead. Poisoned chocolate was sent to the Bishop and Thomas Gage fled Chiapas. The rumor was that the women, who so hated the Bishop for this restriction, poisoned him with chocolate, hence the proverb "Beware the chocolate of Chiapa." Eventually, in 1662, Pope Alexander VII put a final solution to the affair when he declared "Liquidum non frangit jejunum." Translated it means "Liquids (including chocolate) do not break the fast."

In his 1656 book, Travels in the New World, Thomas Gage devotes an entire chapter to chocolate and tells how the women of the city of Chiapas, Mexico were excommunicated by the bishop because "they would not give up sipping their cups of chocolate to sustain them during high mass."

1656 - Chocolate was considered an exotic beverage throughout Europe. The “Queen’s Lane Coffee House on High Street,” Oxford, began serving both coffee and chocolate in 1656 and still serves both beverages today in the 21st century. The Public Advertiser of that day carried this notice:
"In Bishopsgate Street in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West Indian drink called chcolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates."

1664 - Samuel Pepys (1663-1703), English Naval Administrator and Member of Parliament, known for his detailed private diary that he kept during 1660–1669. Pepys was known to frequent coffee houses and mentioned them in great detail in his 1661 to 1664 diary. He was said to strongly believing in the restorative powers of chocolate:
"April 24, 1661 - Waked in the morning with my head in a sad taking through the last night’s drink, which I am very sorry for; so rose and went with Mr Creede to drink our morning draught, which he did give me in jocolatte to settle my stomach"
"November 24, 2664. About noon out with Commissioner Pett, and he and I to a Coffee-house, to drink jocolatte, very good; and so by coach to Westminster, being the first day of the Parliament's meeting."

1700 - By the 1700s, "Chocolate Houses" were all the rage, as popular as coffee houses. These places were precursors of our present day cafes and bars, and they were frequented by politicians, writers, and socialites.

From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, chocolate also enjoyed great success in Great Britain, especially after the conquest of Jamaica, which gave the British direct access to cacao production. After chocolate was introduced in England, milk was added to the after dinner treat.

By the end of the 18th century, London's chocolate houses began to disappear, many of the more fashionable ones becoming smart gentlemen's clubs.
1785 - Thomas Jefferson was to become a great lover of hot chocolate. In a letter to John Adams in 1785, he wrote:
"The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain."