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Subject: Re: For the Chocolate Lovers
From: WingedMessenger <Boy@FlyingHigh.com>
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Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:51:44 GMT
Xref: news.nzbot.com alt.fan.rolex:5114
"::darkshadows::" <bloody@mary.org> wrote in
news:tsnlj3tecjtfan885tro676sdab68gtss1@4ax.com:
>
> Chocolate began as beer-like brew 3,100 years ago
>
> By Will Dunham Tue Nov 13, 9:56 AM ET
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chocolate enjoyed around the world today
> had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America not as the
> sweet treat people now crave but as a celebratory beer-like beverage
> and status symbol, scientists said on Monday.
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes
> exclusively from the cacao plant -- the source of chocolate -- in
> pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido,
> Honduras.
>
> This pushed back by at least 500 years the earliest documented use of
> cacao, an important luxury commodity in Mesoamerica before European
> invaders arrived and now the basis of the modern chocolate industry.
>
> Cacao (pronounced cah-COW) seeds were used to make ceremonial
> beverages consumed by elites of the Aztecs and other civilizations,
> while also being used as a form of currency.
>
> The Spanish conquistadors who shattered the Aztec empire in the 16th
> century were smitten with a chocolate beverage made from cacao seeds
> served in the palace of the emperor. However, this was not the form in
> which cacao had its beginnings.
>
> "The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido were likely
> produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds," the
> scientists wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
> Sciences.
>
> One of the researchers, anthropologist John Henderson of Cornell
> University in Ithaca, New York, said cacao beverages were being
> concocted far earlier than previously believed -- and it was a
> beer-like drink that started the chocolate craze.
>
> "What we're seeing in this early village is a very early stage in
> which serving cacao at fancy occasions is one of the strategies that
> upwardly mobile families are using to establish themselves, to
> accumulate social prestige," Henderson said in a telephone interview.
>
> "I think this is part of the process by which you eventually get
> stratified societies," Henderson said.
>
> The cacao brew consumed at the village of perhaps 200 to 300 people
> may have evolved into the chocolate beverage known from later in
> Mesoamerican history not by design but as "an accidental byproduct of
> some brewing," Henderson said.
>
> The chocolate enjoyed by later Mesoamerican civilizations like the
> Maya and Aztecs was made from ground cacao seeds with added
> seasonings, producing a spicy, frothy drink.
>
> The Spanish brought cacao back to Europe in the 16th century. Many
> innovations occurred in the ensuing centuries, including the advent of
> solid chocolate treats.
>
> The scientists used chemical analysis of residues extracted from
> pottery vessels from the Honduran site to determine that cacao had
> been used.
>
> The style of the 10 small, elegant serving vessels suggests the cacao
> brew was served at important ceremonies perhaps to celebrate weddings
> and births, the scientists said.
>
> Henderson said the first use of cacao may be earlier still by perhaps
> a couple of centuries. He said the scientists intend to test earlier
> pottery from the region for chemical proof.
>
Go for it Donut and dont give a damn about your figure LOL.
Mercury.
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