The
word "chocolate" comes from
the Aztecs of Mexico, and is derived from the Nahuatl word xocolatl, which is a
combination of the words, xocolli, meaning "bitter", and atl, which is "water".
The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility.
Chocolate is also associated with the Mayan god of fertility. Mexican
philologist Ignacio Davila Garibi, proposed that "Spaniards had coined the word
by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa,
with the Aztec one, atl. However, it is more likely that the Aztecs themselves
coined the term, having long adopted into Nahuatl the Mayan word for the "cacao"
bean; the Spanish had little contact with the Mayans before Cortés's early
reports to the Spanish King of the beverage known as xocolatl.However, professor
Michael D. Coe, coauthor of the book The True History of Chocolate, argues that
the word xocolatl appears in "no truly early source on the Nahuatl language or
on Aztec culture."
Chocolate has been
used solely as a drink for nearly all of its history. The earliest record of
using chocolate pre-dates the Mayans. Chocolate residue has been found in
pottery dating to 1100 BC from Honduras, and 600-400 BC from Belize. The
chocolate residue found in an early classic ancient Maya pot in Río Azul,
northern Guatemala, suggests that Mayans were drinking chocolate around 400 A.D.
In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter, spicy drink called
xocoatl, and was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote (known
today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is
probably attributable to the theobromine content. Other chocolate drinks
combined it with such edibles as maize starch paste (which acts as an emulsifier
and thickener), various fruits, and honey. In 1689 noted physician and collector
Hans Sloane, developed a milk chocolate drink in Jamaica which was initially
used by apothecaries, but later sold by the Cadbury brothers.
Chocolate was also an
important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were
often used as currency. For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one
turkey cost one hundred cacao beans and one avocado was worth three beans.
~ Last Updated 3rd Jun 2008 ~