September 13 is International Chocolate Day and we will reveal the story of one of the most loyal and beloved companions of our time.

Chocolate is an industrial food product based on cocoa. It is used for food in pure form and as a semi-product in the culinary industry.

The word chocolate is derived from the first drink with its content Xocóatl (Xócoc: sweet; atl: water; ie "sweet water"), which was produced by the Aztecs. This drink was water mixed with cocoa, vanilla and Cajen beber.

The plant Theobroma Cacao (scientific name of cacao) was classified by Linnaeus, given its name and use in the civilizations that used it at the time.

The history of cocoa and chocolate

The cocoa plant has ancient origins and according to some botanical studies it is thought to have been present over 6.000 years ago in the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. The first farmers who began to cultivate the cocoa plant were the Mayans, around 1000 BC The lands that lie between the Yucatan Peninsula, Ciapas and the Pacific coast of Guatemala were the first to see the beginning of the history of cocoa and with it, of chocolate.

Later the Mayans and the Aztecs began to cultivate cacao and later to produce chocolate.

In addition to liturgical and ceremonial use, in America chocolate was used as a drink called xokoatl, often flavored with vanilla, chili and pepper. This drink was obtained cold or hot by adding water or other ingredients, such as flour and minerals. Another way of preparation was by adding cornmeal and honey to the chocolate.

Its primary characteristic was foam, which in antiquity was obtained by passing it several times from one vessel to another. After the Spanish conquest, the "dybeku" (molinilo) began to be used, which was moved up and down and thus the much-desired foam was achieved more quickly.

One cannot fail to notice the coincidence of the method of preparation of the cocoa drink with the African tradition of tea preparation (three successive cycles of preparation, each of which is obtained by boiling the tea leaves, repeated mixing until foam is reached) .

Xokoatl had the effect of relieving the feeling of fatigue, which was related to the theobromine it contained. It was a luxury item throughout pre-Columbian central America; cacao beans were used as currency and as a unit of measurement: in the treasury of Emperor Motecuhzoma (better known as Montezuma), there were almost a billion of them. It is said that the xokoatl had an excellent taste.

Jose de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the late XNUMXth century, wrote: Not tasty to those who don't know it, more a foam on the surface that doesn't taste good at all. However, it is a drink highly valued by the Indians, who use it to honor the nobles who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, who are accustomed to the country, are very jealous of this chocolate. They say that they prepare many types, warm, cold, lukewarm and that they add many spices; they also make a dough with it that they say is good for the stomach.

It was only in 1502 that cocoa was recognized by European civilization: Christopher Columbus, during his fourth and last trip to America, landed in Honduras where he had the opportunity to try a cocoa-based drink; on his return he took some cacao seeds with him to show to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but did not attach any importance to the discovery. It was only with Hernando de Soto that the introduction of cacao to Europe was achieved in a widespread way, it was the year 1519.

He came to America from Spain. Emperor Montezuma welcomed him with open arms and offered him an entire cacao plantation.

The first documented shipment of chocolate to Europe for commercial purposes traveled on a ship from Veracruz to Seville in 1585. Chocolate was always served as a drink, but Europeans and especially Spanish orders of monks, who had long experience with michelas, added vanilla and sugar to remove the bitter taste and removed the pepper and chili.

Throughout the 500s, chocolate remained the exclusive property of Spain, which expanded its cultivation. Only in the 600s, via Tuscany, cocoa reached Italy by the Florentine merchant Antonio Carletti and in 1615 throughout Europe. Traces of Florence's old association with chocolate can be found in several books of the Central National Library of Florence, where there are numerous written testimonies starting from the year 1600 with a debate on chocolate and its consumption.

Always in Florence, from the year 1680 there are written traces on the subject of chocolate. In 1680, "Changes between food and chocolate..." was published, which was followed in 1728 by: "Thoughts about the use of chocolate", "Letter examining the reasons of the author of the first thoughts, about the use of chocolate", "

In the 700th century it became a luxury among the nobles of Europe and the Dutch, navigators and masters, took world control from Spain. In the Venice of the 1790s, the first coffee shops were born, the ancestors of today's bars; they were of course also chocolate shops and were racing to change existing recipes by inventing new ones. In XNUMX the "Venetian Gazette" documented the spread of the product. Until the end of the century XVIII chocolate was considered a cure for everything and was thought to have miraculous properties.

Brazil, Martinique and the Philippines increased cocoa cultivation; at the same time many European cities became famous for processing chocolate; an example was Turin which had a production of 350 kg per day, most of which was exported to Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France, where little by little the preparation of chocolate drinks turned into a passion.

At the end of the century XVIII The first solid chocolate as we eat it today was invented in Turin by Doret. In 1802 Bozzelli invented a machine to refine the cocoa mass and mix it with sugar and vanilla. It was not until 1820 that the system was put into operation and the first chocolate cube was produced in England.

In 1826 Pierre Paul Caffarel started the production of chocolate in large quantities thanks to a new machine, which could produce over 300 kg of chocolate per day.

In 1828 the Dutchman Conrad J. van Houten accelerated the method of extracting fat from cocoa beans, transforming them into cocoa powder and cocoa butter. He also developed the so-called "Dutch process", which consists of treating cocoa with alkali to remove the bitter taste. These treatments made possible the production of chocolate as it is today.

The first chocolate bar larger than Doret's was produced in 1847 by Joseph Fry. In 1852, in Turin, Michele Prochet began mixing cocoa with crushed, roasted hazelnuts, creating Gianduia dough. Daniel Peter, a Swiss candle manufacturer, teamed up with his father-in-law to produce chocolate.

In 1867, they began to introduce milk as an ingredient and launched milk chocolate on the market in 1875. To remove the water from the milk so that the chocolate could be stored longer, he was helped by a neighbor, a baby food manufacturer, named Henri Nestle. Rudolph Lindt invented the process called "conching", which consists of keeping melted chocolate for a long time to make the chocolate homogeneous.

In 1946 Pietro Ferrero invented a chocolate and hazelnut cream with the aim of selling a few kilos to confectioners: the product was a much greater success than expected and a few years later, in 1964, chocolate cream was created, which became famous all over the world.