Gibson’s World

Chocolate is a really interesting food.  It most commonly comes in milk, dark, and white chocolate.  My favorite is milk, but other people may have different opinions.

Many people don’t know that chocolate comes from the seeds of cacao trees.   Cacao trees are native from tropical South America, but have been introduced to tropical places all over the world including Africa, Australia, and Asia.  Although cacao trees started out only in South America, Africa now produces about 2/3rds of all the cacao for the world.  The seeds from a cacao tree are like those of a cantalope except much bigger.

The history of chocolate is really interesting.  Both the Mayans and the Aztecs used chocolate.  Most people think of chocolate as something you eat, but the Mayans and Aztecs disagreed.  The Mayans and Aztecs made a cold, bitter drink made from chocolate and mixed with chiles, peppers, and other spicy foods.  Ugggg!  The Mayans consider it to be a gift from the gods, so only the royal people could drink it on special occasions.  The Aztec’s also used chocolate, but more often. 

Did you know that the Aztecs used cacao beans as money?  Probably not.  Aztecs think of Cacao trees the way we would think of a money tree.  One turkey would cost 100 cacao beans and one fresh avocado would cost three cacao beans.  Cacao beans might be valuable to people, but they definitely aren’t to horses, dogs, parrots, small rodents or cats.  If any of these animals eat chocolate or cacao seeds, they can suffer seizures, heart attacks, internal bleeding, and could eventually die from it.

During our stay in Bariloche, we went to the Fenoglio Chocolate Factory and learned a ton about chocolate.  So next time you eat chocolate, remember that without the cacao tree, chocolate would never exist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm and is filed under South America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.