European Adaptation of Chocolate

European adaptation

See also: History of chocolate in Spain

Chocolate soon became a fashionable drink of the nobility after the discovery of the Americas. The morning chocolateby Pietro Longhi; Venice, 1775–1780.

The first European contact with chocolate came when Montezuma (then tlatoani of Tenochtitlan) introduced Hernán Cortés, a Spanish conquistador, to xocolatl in the 16th century.^[14] Antonio de Solís, Philip IV's official Chronicler of the Indies, described Montezuma customarily taking a chocolate beverage after meals, as part of a sumptuous daily ritual:

He had Cups of Gold, and Salvers of the same; and sometimes he drank out of Cocoas [i.e., coconut shells], and natural Shells, very richly set with Jewels.[...] When he had done eating, he usually took a Kind of Chocolate, made after the Manner of the Country, that is, the Substance of the Nut beat up with the Mill till the Cup was filled more with Froth than with Liquor; after which he used to smoak Tobacco perfum'd with liquid Amber.^[21]

Jose de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the later 16th century, wrote of it:

Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women that are accustomed to the country are very greedy of this Chocolate. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that "chili"; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh.^[22]

The first recorded shipment of chocolate to Europe for commercial purposes was in a shipment from Veracruz to Sevilla in 1585.^[16] It was still served as a beverage, but the Europeans added cane sugar to counteract the natural bitterness and removed the chili pepper while retaining the vanilla, in addition they added cinnamon as well as other spices.^[14]

What the Spaniards then called "chocolatl" was said to be a beverage consisting of a chocolate base flavored with vanilla and other spices that was served cold.^[23][24] Montezuma's court reportedly drank about 2,000 cups of xocolatl per day, 50 of which were consumed by Montezuma himself.

Until the 16th century, no European had ever heard of the popular drink from the Central and South American peoples.^[25] It was not until the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs that chocolate could be imported to Europe. In Spain, it quickly became a court favorite. In a century it had spread and become popular throughout the European continent.^[25] To keep up with the high demand for this new drink, Spanish armies began enslaving Mesoamericans to produce cacao.^[26] Even with cacao harvesting becoming a regular business, only royalty and the well-connected could afford to drink this expensive import.^[27] Before long, the Spanish began growing cacao beans on plantations, and using an African workforce to help manage them.^[28] The situation was different in England. Put simply, anyone with money could buy it.^[29] The first chocolate house opened in London in 1657.^[29] In 1689, noted physician and collector Hans Sloane developed a milk chocolate drink in Jamaica which was initially used by apothecaries, but later sold to the Cadbury brothers in 1897.^[30]

For hundreds of years, the chocolate-making process remained unchanged. When the Industrial Revolution arrived, many changes occurred that brought about the food today in its modern form. A Dutch family's (van Houten) inventions made mass production of shiny, tasty chocolate bars and related products possible. In the 18th century, mechanical mills were created that squeezed out cocoa butter, which in turn helped to create hard, durable chocolate.^[31] But, it was not until the arrival of the Industrial Revolution that these mills were put to bigger use. Not long after the revolution cooled down, companies began advertising this new invention to sell many of the chocolate treats we see today.^[32] When new machines were produced, people began experiencing and consuming chocolate worldwide.^[33]

At the end of the 18th century, the first form of solid chocolate was invented in Turin by Doret. This chocolate was sold in large quantities from 1826 by Pierre Paul Caffarel in Italy. In 1819, F. L. Cailler opened the first Swiss chocolate factory. In 1828, Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten patented a method for extracting the fat from cocoa beans and making powdered cocoa and cocoa butter. Van Houten also developed the "so-called" Dutch process of treating chocolate with alkali to remove the bitter taste. This made it possible to form the modern chocolate bar. The German company Jordan & Timaeus sold the first known chocolate bar made from cocoa, sugar and goat's milk in 1839.^[34] In England, the company, J. S. Fry & Sons discovered a way to mix some of the cocoa butter back into the Dutched chocolate, and added sugar, creating a paste that could be moulded. This led to the first British chocolate bar in 1847, followed in 1849 by the Cadbury brothers.

In 1865, an unknown employee at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company discovered the Broma process of separating cocoa butter from cocoa solids (namely, that if chocolate is hung in a bag in a warm room, the butter will drip out naturally over time).

Daniel Peter, a Swiss candle maker, joined his father-in-law's chocolate business. In 1867, he began experimenting with milk as an ingredient. He brought his new product, milk chocolate, to market in 1875. He was assisted in removing the water content from the milk to prevent mildewing by a neighbour, a baby food manufacturer named Henri Nestlé. Rodolphe Lindt invented the process called conching, which involves heating and grinding the chocolate solids very finely to ensure that the liquid is evenly blended. This enabled Milton Hershey to make chocolate even more popular by mass producing affordable chocolate bars.