I don’t know a single person who doesn’t like chocolate and I only know a few people who say they would rather have something else sweet. I don’t trust them. I mean, who can pass up a moist, triple chocolate cake with fudge icing? I know I can’t. I’m a sucker for chocolate, I always have been, and I married a chocoholic. There is always chocolate in our house. It appears we are not alone. The United States consumes the largest share of the world’s chocolate consumption, although we rank 10th in annual chocolate consumption per capita. The Swiss are first eating an average of 21 pounds per person annually. Chocolate comes from the fruit of the cacao tree. The botanical name, Theobroma cacao, translates as “food of the gods”. The tree is strictly a tropical plant found in the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, and even in the South Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea. The fruit is enclosed in pods, which hang from the trunk and main branches of the tree. Although the tree produces thousands of clusters of blossoms, only 3 to 10 percent will mature into full fruit. Embedded in the pulp of the fruit are dark, purple seeds that after processing, are chocolate beans. The cacao tree is a native of Central and South America. The ancient Maya that lived there consumed cacao as early as 500 A.D., and wrote about it on their pottery. Christopher Columbus is believed to be the first European to come in contact with cacao. In 1502 Columbus and his crew seized a canoe filled with local goods for trade. They were surprised at how the Native Americans held the cacao beans in such high regard, picking up every one that dropped from the canoe. What they didn’t know was that the cacao beans were also used as the local currency. Twenty years later, the Spanish conquistador, Hernando Cortez brought back three chests full of cacao beans to Spain. At first the beans were made into a beverage sweetened with sugar that only the rich and noble could afford. As other countries challenged Spain’s monopoly of the cultivation of cacao, it became more widely available and therefore, more affordable. Now that cacao was affordable, new ways of using chocolate started popping up all over Europe. Cakes and pastries were just a few of the sweets that benefited from the addition of chocolate. In 1828, Dutch chocolate maker Conrad J. van Houten patented the “Dutching” method of pressing a portion of the fat out of cacao beans. This created a fine powder known as “cocoa”. Two other developments occurred in 1879 that contributed to the chocolate we love today. First, Daniel Peter used powdered milk to make milk chocolate. Then, Rudolphe Lindt invented “conching” which improved the appearance and consistency of chocolate. The first chocolate factory in the United States was established in 1765. Since then, a basic method has evolved for making chocolate. The cacao beans are cleaned and then roasted. Each variety is roasted separately. There are three main varieties of cacao beans. The rarest and most prized are Criollo beans. The most commonly used are Forastero beans and Trinitario is a cross between the previous two. After roasting, the beans are put through a winnowing machine to crack and remove the outer shell, and the remaining nibs are crushed into a thick paste by a melangeur machine. Sugar and vanilla are added during this process which also liquefies the cocoa butter in the nibs. Up to this point, the manufacturing of cocoa powder and chocolate is the same. The liquefied cocoa butter (or paste) that is squeezed from the nibs is an essential component of chocolate. Cocoa butter forms about 25 percent of the weight of most chocolate bars. The paste is then subjected to conching, which kneads the paste. The chocolate is tempered for several hours. This involves continually heating and cooling the chocolate in stages, giving it a bright luster and a sharp snap when you break it. The final steps are molding and packaging the chocolate for distribution. Although this is the basic pattern for making chocolate, manufacturers are free to develop variations of their own. The shroud of secrecy that is present in each manufacturer’s formula is like no other. Each type of bean has a particular taste, so individual bean types and the way in which they are blended have a direct impact on flavor. Time intervals, temperatures and proportions of ingredients are three critical factors that no company wants to divulge. Now that you understand where chocolate comes from and how it is made, you should know the uses for chocolate are endless. There is unsweetened, semisweet, milk chocolate and cocoa powder. You can make scrolls, leaves, shapes, curls or pipe chocolate onto a surface. Whatever your choice may be, I bet the next time you eat a candy bar or chocolate dessert, you will think about the path and effort it took to get that wonderful taste to you.
This article appears in March 2024.