Cocoa and Chocolate Part 1

Cocoa and Chocolate.

by Arthur W. Knapp.

PREFACE

Although there are several excellent scientific works dealing in a detailed manner with the cacao bean and its products from the various view points of the technician, there is no comprehensive modern work written for the general reader. Until that appears, I offer this little book, which attempts to cover lightly but accurately the whole ground, including the history of cacao, its cultivation and manufacture. This is a small book in which to treat of so large a subject, and to avoid prolixity I have had to generalise. This is a dangerous practice, for what is gained in brevity is too often lost in accuracy: brevity may be always the soul of wit, it is rarely the body of truth. The expert will find that I have considered him in that I have given attention to recent developments, and if I have talked of the methods peculiar to one place as though they applied to the whole world, I ask him to consider me by supplying the inevitable variations and exceptions himself.

The book, though short, has taken me a long time to write, having been written in the brief breathing s.p.a.ces of a busy life, and it would never have been completed but for the encouragement I received from Messrs.

Cadbury Bros., Ltd., who aided me in every possible way. I am particularly indebted to the present Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Mr. W.A.

Cadbury, for advice and criticism, and to Mr. Walter Barrow for reading the proofs. The members of the staff to whom I am indebted are Mr. W.

Pickard, Mr. E.J. Organ, Mr. T.B. Rogers; also Mr. A. Hackett, for whom the diagrams in the manufacturing section were originally made by Mr.

J.W. Richards. I am grateful to Messrs. J.S. Fry and Sons, Limited, for information and photographs. In one or two cases I do not know whom to thank for the photographs, which have been culled from many sources. I have much pleasure in thanking the following: Mr. R. Whymper for a large number of Trinidad photos; the Director of the Imperial Inst.i.tute and Mr. John Murray for permission to use three ill.u.s.trations from the Imperial Inst.i.tute series of handbooks to the Commercial Resources of the Tropics; M. Ed. Leplae, Director-General of Agriculture, Belgium, for several photos, the blocks of which were kindly supplied by Mr. H.

Hamel Smith, of _Tropical Life_; Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for five reproductions from C.J.J. van Hall's book on _Cocoa_; and _West Africa_ for four ill.u.s.trations of the Gold Coast.

The photographs reproduced on pages 2, 23, 39, 47, 49 and 71 are by Jacobson of Trinidad, on pages 85 and 86 by Underwood & Underwood of London, and on page 41 by Mrs. Stanhope Lovell of Trinidad.

The industry with which this book deals is changing slowly from an art to a science. It is in a transition period (it is one of the humours of any live industry that it is always in a transition period). There are many indications of scientific progress in cacao cultivation; and now that, in addition to the experimental and research departments attached to the princ.i.p.al firms, a Research a.s.sociation has been formed for the cocoa and chocolate industry, the increased amount of diffused scientific knowledge of cocoa and chocolate manufacture should give rise to interesting developments.

A.W. KNAPP.

Birmingham, _February, 1920._

INTRODUCTION

In a few short chapters I propose to give a plain account of the production of cocoa and chocolate. I a.s.sume that the reader is not a specialist and knows little or nothing of the subject, and hence both the style of writing and the treatment of the subject will be simple. At the same time, I a.s.sume that the reader desires a full and accurate account, and not a vague story in which the difficulties are ignored. I hope that, as a result of this method of dealing with my subject, even experts will find much in the book that is of interest and value. After a brief survey of the history of cocoa and chocolate, I shall begin with the growing of the cacao bean, and follow the _cacao_ in its career until it becomes the finished product ready for consumption.

_Cacao or Cocoa?_

The reader will have noted above the spelling "cacao," and to those who think it curious, I would say that I do not use this spelling from pedantry. It is an imitation of the word which the Mexicans used for this commodity as early as 1500, and when spoken by Europeans is apt to sound like the howl of a dog. The Mexicans called the tree from which cacao is obtained _cacauatl_. When the great Swedish scientist Linnaeus, the father of botany, was naming and cla.s.sifying (about 1735) the trees and plants known in his time, he christened it _Theobroma Cacao_, by which name it is called by botanists to this day. Theo-broma is Greek for "Food of the G.o.ds." Why Linnaeus paid this extraordinary compliment to cacao is obscure, but it has been suggested that he was inordinately fond of the beverage prepared from it--the cup which both cheers and satisfies. It will be seen from the above that the species-name is cacao, and one can understand that Englishmen, finding it difficult to get their insular lips round this outlandish word, lazily called it cocoa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CACAO PODS (Amelonado type) in various states of growth and ripeness.]

In this book I shall use the words cacao, cocoa, and chocolate as follows:

_Cacao_, when I refer to the cacao tree, the cacao pod, or the cacao bean or seed. By the single word, cacao, I imply the raw product, cacao beans, in bulk.

_Cocoa_, when I refer to the powder manufactured from the roasted bean by pressing out part of the b.u.t.ter. The word is too well established to be changed, even if one wished it. As we shall see later (in the chapter on adulteration) it has come legally to have a very definite significance. If this method of distinguishing between cacao and cocoa were the accepted practice, the perturbation which occurred in the public mind during the war (in 1916), as to whether manufacturers were exporting "cocoa" to neutral countries, would not have arisen. It should have been spelled "cacao," for the statements referred to the raw beans and not to the manufactured beverage. Had this been done, it would have been unnecessary for the manufacturers to point out that cocoa powder was not being so exported, and that they naturally did not sell the raw cacao bean.

_Chocolate._--This word is given a somewhat wider meaning. It signifies any preparation of roasted cacao beans without abstraction of b.u.t.ter. It practically always contains sugar and added cacao b.u.t.ter, and is generally prepared in moulded form. It is used either for eating or drinking.

_Cacao Beans and Coconuts._

In old ma.n.u.scripts the word cacao is spelled in all manner of ways, but _cocoa_ survived them all. This curious inversion, _cocoa_, is to be regretted, for it has led to a confusion which could not otherwise have arisen. But for this spelling no one would have dreamed of confusing the totally unrelated bodies, cacao and the milky coconut. (You note that I spell it "coconut," not "cocoanut," for the name is derived from the Spanish "coco," "grinning face," or bugbear for frightening children, and was given to the nut because the three scars at the broad end of the nut resemble a grotesque face). To make confusion worse confounded the old writers referred to cacao _seeds_ as cocoa _nuts_ (as for example, in _The Humble Memorial of Joseph Fry_, quoted in the chapter on history), but, as in appearance cacao seeds resemble _beans_, they are now usually spoken of as beans. The distinction between cacao and the coconut may be summarised thus:

Cacao. Coconut.

Botanical Name Theobroma Cacao Cocos nucifera Palm Tree Palm

Fruit Cacao pod, containing Coconut, which with outer many seeds (cacao beans) fibre is as large as a man's head

Products Cocoa Broken coconut (copra) Chocolate Coconut matting

Fatty Const.i.tuent Cacao b.u.t.ter Coconut oil

CHAPTER I

COCOA AND CHOCOLATE--A SKETCH OF THEIR HISTORY

Did time and s.p.a.ce allow, there is much to be told on the romantic side of chocolate, of its divine origin, of the b.l.o.o.d.y wars and brave exploits of the Spaniards who conquered Mexico and were the first to introduce cacao into Europe, tales almost too thrilling to be believed, of the intrigues of the Spanish Court, and of celebrities who met and sipped their chocolate in the parlours of the coffee and chocolate houses so fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

_Cocoa and Chocolate_ (Whymper).

On opening a cacao pod, it is seen to be full of beans surrounded by a fruity pulp, and whilst the pulp is very pleasant to taste, the beans themselves are uninviting, so that doubtless the beans were always thrown away until ... someone tried roasting them. One pictures this "someone," a pre-historic Aztec with swart skin, sniffing the aromatic fume coming from the roasting beans, and thinking that beans which smelled so appetising must be good to consume. The name of the man who discovered the use of cacao must be written in some early chapter of the history of man, but it is blurred and unreadable: all we know is that he was an inhabitant of the New World and probably of Central America.

_Original Home of Cacao._

The corner of the earth where the cacao tree originally grew, and still grows wild to-day, is the country watered by the mighty Amazon and the Orinoco. This is the very region in which Orellano, the Spanish adventurer, said that he had truly seen El Dorado, which he described as a City of Gold, roofed with gold, and standing by a lake with golden sands. In reality, El Dorado was nothing but a vision, a vision that for a hundred years fascinated all manner of dreamers and adventurers from Sir Walter Raleigh downwards, so that many braved great hardships in search of it, groped through the forests where the cacao tree grew, and returned to Europe feeling they had failed. To our eyes they were not entirely unsuccessful, for whilst they failed to find a city of gold, they discovered the home of the golden pod.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD DRAWING OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN; AT HIS FEET A CHOCOLATE-CUP, CHOCOLATE-POT, AND CHOCOLATE WHISK OR "MOLINET."

(From _Traitez Nouveaux et Curieux du Cafe, du The, et du Chocolate_.

Dufour, 1693).]

_Montezuma--the First Great Patron of Chocolate._

When Columbus discovered the New World he brought back with him to Europe many new and curious things, one of which was cacao. Some years later, in 1519, the Spanish conquistador, Cortes, landed in Mexico, marched into the interior and discovered to his surprise, not the huts of savages, but a beautiful city, with palaces and museums. This city was the capital of the Aztecs, a remarkable people, notable alike for their ancient civilisation and their wealth. Their national drink was chocolate, and Montezuma, their Emperor, who lived in a state of luxurious magnificence, "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavoured with vanilla and other spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold. This beverage if so it could be called, was served in golden goblets, with spoons of the same metal or tortoise-sh.e.l.l finely wrought. The Emperor was exceedingly fond of it, to judge from the quant.i.ty--no less than fifty jars or pitchers being prepared for his own daily consumption: two thousand more were allowed for that of his household."[1] It is curious that Montezuma took no other beverage than chocolate, especially if it be true that the Aztecs also invented that fascinating drink, the c.o.c.ktail (xoc-tl). How long this ancient people, students of the mysteries of culinary science, had known the art of preparing a drink from cacao, is not known, but it is evident that the cultivation of cacao received great attention in these parts, for if we read down the list of the tributes paid by different cities to the Lords of Mexico, we find "20 chests of ground chocolate, 20 bags of gold dust," again "80 loads of red chocolate, 20 lip-jewels of clear amber," and yet again "200 loads of chocolate."

[1] Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_.

Another people that share with the Aztecs the honour of being the first great cultivators of cacao are the Incas of Peru, that wonderful nation that knew not poverty.