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When
the Church Said "No" to Chocolate!
Chocolate,
that perennial favorite, has been accused of being sinfully
delicious, overly fattening, and the precursor to teenage
complexion problems. Its history is intertwined with religion,
and at one point was the cause of a theological donnybrook in
the Catholic church in Mexico.
"Food of the Gods," is the
literal translation of the name Theobroma. The name, given to
the chocolate tree and its genus by the great botanist Carolus
Linnaeus, reflects both the flavor and the history of chocolate.
When the Spaniards began to colonize and catechize Mexico, they
attempted to eradicate the pagan religion of the native Indians.
As happened in other parts of the world, the Church successfully
stamped out many pagan customs while keeping some of the best
parts of the culture. The cults of various saints replaced those
of pagan gods, and medicinal and other useful plants were
renamed for Our Lord, Our Lady, or one of the saints, and
continued to be used. In Mexico, the Aztec drink chocolatl was
taken from its Aztec ceremonial use and retained by the Spanish
as a tasty beverage and as a medicine.
By the late 1600's, the grand ladies of
the land had become so fond of this frothy beverage that they
were accustomed to having it served to them frequently, even in
church. As justification for their enjoyment, they referred to
its medicinal use, and claimed it prevented fainting and
"weakness" during the long ceremonies. One bishop
considered it a blatant abuse, and forbad the practice. Drinking
chocolate in church obviously broke the fast laws. (Not to
mention that so much pleasure must be pagan!) The ladies, in
retaliation, simply took themselves and their entourage to
another church. A rumor holds that the offending clergyman later
died of a cup of poisoned chocolate. The whole affair became a
fearful scandal. Eventually, in 1662, Pope Alexander VII put a
final solution to the affair when he declared "Liquidum non
frangit jejunum." [Liquids (including chocolate) do not
break the fast.] It is likely that this decision was based on
the fact that chocolate, like so many other herbs, was
considered to have medicinal qualities.
Although Christopher Columbus was the
first European to see and taste chocolate, it was the Spanish
explorer Hernando Cortez who introduced it to Europe. In 1519,
Cortez and his men witnessed a strange ceremony at the court of
Montezuma, the supreme emperor of the Aztecs. Seated high on a
golden throne in front of his reverent subjects, Montezuma
repeatedly drank a dark brown, foamy beverage called chocolatl
from a golden goblet. Ground cocoa beans mixed with water and
fermented corn were whipped to a froth with a molinillo, a
wooden stick with a fluted head. As the Indians served the
Spanish the same bitter drink, they explained that the seeds
came from paradise, and that each sip would bring wisdom and
knowledge.
Most of what we know of the history of
chocolate before Cortez first tasted it at Montezuma's court is
based on conjecture, myth, and circumstantial evidence. The
first cocoa trees probably grew in the Amazon and Orinoco
valleys more than four thousand years ago. They were cultivated
by the Mayans who carried seed with them when they migrated to
the Yucatán about the seventh century; the plant was spread
through Central America by the Aztecs. The word chocolate
derives from the Aztec/Mayan word chocolatl, the name the
Indians gave the cold bitter drink made from ground cocoa beans
mixed with liquid. The word cocoa is derived from the
Aztec/Mexican word cachuatl, which comes from the word
cacahuazintl, the name of the fruit or pod of the cocoa tree.
Legend claims the drink was intoxicating, but although the Aztec
cocoa beans contained the stimulants caffeine and theobromine,
and were undoubtedly more potent than today's cultivated ones,
the Indian chocolatl was often made by mixing the ground beans
with fermented corn mash or wine and was drunk in large
quantities. Montezuma himself drank 50 cups a day, believing
each was blessed by the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.
According to Aztec myth, the god
Quetzalcoatl brought the seeds of the cocoa tree from the Garden
of Life and gave them to man. At first, the god lived in harmony
with the other gods and with man, but eventually fell from grace
and was banished. He promised to return, and many historians
believe that the hospitality with which the Aztecs greeted
Cortez was because they believed he was the returning golden
haired God. Although the myth varied from tribe to tribe in its
details, all the Indians considered cocoa an important crop. The
beans were so valuable that the Indians even used them as a form
of currency. 10 of the beans would buy a turkey or a rabbit; for
100 you could obtain a human slave.
Many of the religious practices of the
Indians were to insure a good harvest. The Itza Indiansit is
said, at the start of the planting season, sacrificed a human
prisoner to their goddesses. The victims were given cups of
chocolatl to turn their hearts to chocolate and then their
hearts were torn from their bodies and offered to the goddesses.
In Nicaragua, the sacrifice was less bloody and involved weeks
of sexual abstinence before planting.
Cortez praised chocolate effusively in
a letter to Charles V, king of Spain, and brought a supply home
with him. He also established a cocoa plantation to grow
"money" for the king and, as he traveled, he planted
cocoa beans on the islands he explored. About 1550, the nuns of
a Mexican convent made the bitter drink more palatable with the
addition of vanilla and sugar.
The Spanish enthusiasm for the drink
was passed to the French court with the marriage of Marie
Therese, a chocolate enthusiast of the first order, to Louis IV
in 1660. Here, the drink was considered an aphrodisiac and
happily imbibed by those of the wealthy classes who could afford
it. The popular drink was also spread throughout Europe when the
Spanish friars carried the beverage with them from monastery to
monastery. Originally, the Europeans mixed their chocolate with
water, coffee, wine and a number of fermented drinks, as well as
with pepper and other spices. The English and the Dutch added
milk and established chocolate houses in the early 1700s. It was
touted as a medicine in Britain, being "especially helpful
for children and in cases of consumption (tuberculosis.) Until
the nineteenth century, chocolate was only used as a drink.
Today's candy bars and solid chocolate confections came into
being only after the first "eating" chocolate was
introduced by the English chocolate company of Fry and Sons in
1847.
Today, as we enjoy our steaming hot
chocolate on a cool winter's day, or one of the hundreds of
other delicious treats created by the world's dedicated
chocophiles, who would dream that the Church once said
"no" to chocolate?
MEXICAN
CHOCOLATE - TRY IT!
Although Montezuma drank his frothy chocolatl cold, we can enjoy
a delicious whipped version of hot Mexican chocolate. If you
don't have a molinillo, (you can probably find one in a
specialty shop or the Mexican food section of your grocery
store), beat your chocolate with a whisk or eggbeater.
- In a bowl, put 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, and mix with
enough
water to make a thin paste.
- In a large pan, bring to a boil 4 cups milk.
- Break 2 - 4" cinnamon sticks into the milk.
- Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.
- Carefully stir in the cocoa mix.
- Turn off heat and whip to a froth just before serving.
Another interesting and very popular
use of chocolate was invented by the nuns of a convent in
Pueblo, Mexico. A visiting bishop was coming for Sunday dinner
and the cook created a special dish in his honor with a peppery
sauce over turkey, one of the native birds. At the last minute,
she grated in some bitter chocolate, and called the sauce
"mole." Because of its long list of ingredients, even
the best of Mexican cooks today often use the sauce purchased
ready-made for a delicious chicken dish. You can find a jar of
mole sauce in the Mexican food section of your grocery or in a
specialty shop, and the recipe on the jar works just fine. •
References:
Public documents of Alexander VII found in Bullar.Rom. ed.
Turin, 1899 XVI-XVII
Alexander VII (18 March, 1666) condemned the teaching of those
who claimed that food so taken was not to be regarded as
equalling or exceeding the amount allowed - Denzinger,
Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum, tenth ed. Friburg im Br.
1908, No. 1129
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