provided by Bobby and Julie Culver from Peterbrooke Chocolatier, 2/01/08

Did you know that chocolate was first cultivated and consumed by the Mayans and Aztecs? By the year 1000 A.D. the beans were being used as currency. The Aztecs believed that drinking chocolate, which was the undiluted, unsweetened liquor from the fermented cocao beans, would bring great wisdom, understanding and energy. Its use was reserved for the ruling and priestly classes.

In 1492 Columbus was given some of the cacao beans and took them back to Spain, but he didn’t know how to process and ferment them. In 1519 Cortez descended upon the Aztecs and eventually destroyed Montezuma’s armies and his capital. The Aztecs were convinced that Quetzacoatl had returned as prophesied and they tried to get him to leave by once again plying him with chocolate.

It didn’t work very well, as Cortez organized the area as a Spanish colony, but it did introduce Cortez to not only the consumption but the processing of chocolate.

He took the beans and the process back to Spain. The Spaniards added sugar and honey to the bitter liquid and then fell in love with it. As in the Americas, its use was reserved for members of the court. Chocolate was kept a secret by the Spanish court for almost a hundred years.

In 1755 the processing of chocolate moved back to the New World when John Hanau and James Baker opened a processing house in Massachusetts, which was beginning of the company now known as Baker’s Chocolate.

Cocoa butter is a triglyceride which begins to soften at 75 F., and melts at 97 F. It is a highly saturated fat which consists principally of the fatty acid stearic acid, which is found in higher concentration in chocolate than in any other food. Stearic acid is rapidly converted by the liver into oleic acid, a monounsaturated that neither raises nor lowers serum cholesterol. Oleic acid is also present in olive and canola oils.

Chocolate does contain caffeine, but not much. One ounce of milk chocolate usually contains 5 mg of caffeine, one ounce of semi-sweet usually has 5-10 mg, and a six-ounce cup of cocoa usually has 10 mg. For comparison, a six-ounce cup of coffee contains 100-150 mg. Chocolate does not cause acne. It does contain a protein that inhibits bacterial growth on teeth, and since it melts at body temperature and melts off one’s teeth, the sugar in chocolate does not cling to one’s teeth.

The loveliest thing about chocolate, the thing that makes us all so HAPPY when we eat it, is that it contains the highest concentration in any food of phenylethylamine, which is the chemical produced in the brain when a person is in love.

Bobby and Julie Culver are the proprietors of Peterbrooke Chocolatier located at the Forum in Peachtree Corners. They invite you to stop by and sample any of their Peterbrooke chocolate sensations.