What is Food of the Gods?

I am currently in Ghana which just happens to be either number one or two in the world for production at this time!!

The Story of Cacao

Chocolate begins with a bean ... a cacao bean. It has been mashed and eaten for centuries. The history of chocolate spans from 200 B.C. to the present, encompassing many nations and peoples of our world. The scientific name of the cacao tree's fruit is "Theobroma Cacao" which means "food of the gods." In fact, the cacao bean was worshipped as an idol by the Mayan Indians over 2,000 years ago. In 1519, Hernando Cortez tasted "Cacahuatt," a drink enjoyed by Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor. Cortez observed that the Aztecs treated cacao beans, used to make the drink, as priceless treasures. He subsequently brought the beans back to Spain where the chocolate drink was made and then heated with added sweeteners. Its formula was kept a secret to be enjoyed by nobility. Eventually, the secret was revealed and the drink's fame spread to other lands. By the mid-1600s, the chocolate drink had gained widespread popularity in France. One enterprising Frenchman opened the first hot chocolate shop in London. By the 1700s, chocolate houses were as prominent as coffee houses in England. The New World's first chocolate factory opened in 1765 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Sixty years later, Conrad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, invented a cocoa press that enabled confectioners to make chocolate candy by mixing cocoa butter with finely ground sugar. In 1876, Daniel Peter, a Swiss candymaker, developed milk chocolate by adding condensed milk to chocolate liquor - the nonalcoholic by-product of the cocoa bean's inner meat. The Swiss also gave the chocolate a smoother texture through a process called "conching." The name was derived from a Greek term meaning "sea shell" and refered to the shape of old mixing vats where particles in the chocolate mixture were reduced to a fine texture.

The Myth Of Cacao - Theobroma

"A myth I discovered from the northern Andes speaks of the crucial role played by cacao in restoring the balance of nature after a greedy being snatched all wealth for himself. The myth begins with an omnipotent deity named Sibu who could grow animals and humans from seeds. Sibu transferred his powers to another deity, Sura, giving him all the precious seeds. Sura buried the seeds and left the site for a brief period. Unfortunately, while he was away, a third deity, a trickster named Jabaru dug up all the seeds and ate them, leaving nothing for the creation-work of Sibu and Sura. When poor Sura returned, the trickster Jabaru slit Sura's throat and buried him where the seeds had been. Very pleased with himself, Jabaru left the scene and went home to his wives. After a time, the trickster Jabaru passed by the place again and saw that two strange trees had sprung up from poor Sura's grave: a cacao tree and a calabash. The omnipotent deity Sibu stood quietly beside the trees. When Sibu saw the trickster approaching, Sibu asked him to brew him a cup of cocoa from the tree. Jabaru picked a bean-filled pod and a calabash fruit and took them to his wives, who brewed the cocoa and filled the hollowed out calabash shell with the rich drink. Then the trickster Jabaru carried this vessel back to Sibu, holding it out to him. "No, you drink first," all-powerful Sibu insisted politely. Jabaru complied eagerly, gulping down the delicious drink as fast as he could. But his delight changed to agony as the cocoa born from poor Sura's body caused Jabaru's belly to swell and swell until it burst wide open, spilling out the stolen seeds all over the ground. Sibu then restored his friend Sura to life again and returned the seeds to him so that all humans and animals might one day grow from those precious seeds and enjoy Earth's bounty."



The Beautiful Tree

The cacao tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs protection from wind and requires a fair amount of shade under most conditions. This is true especially in its first two to four years of growth. With pruning and careful cultivation, the trees of most strains will begin bearing fruit in the fifth year. With extreme care, some strains can be induced to yield good crops in the third and fourth years. The cacao tree has large glossy leaves that are red when young and green when mature. The tree sprouts thousands of tiny waxy pink or white five-petalled blossoms that cluster together on the trunk and older branches. But only 3 to 10 percent will go on to mature into full fruit. The fruit has green or sometimes maroon coloured pods on the trunk of the tree and its main branches. Shaped somewhat like an elongated melon tapered at both ends, these pods often ripen into a golden colour or sometimes take on a scarlet hue with multicoloured flecks. At its maturity, the cultivated tree measures from 15 to 25 feet tall, though the tree in its wild state may reach 60 feet or more. Handling the harvest The job of picking ripe cacao pods is not an easy one. The tree is so frail and its roots are so shallow that workmen cannot risk injuring it by climbing to reach the pods on the higher branches. The planter sends his pickers into the fields with long-handled, mitten-shaped steel knives that can reach the highest pods and snip them without wounding the soft bark of the tree. Machetes are used for the pods growing within reach on the lower trunk. Gatherers follow the harvesters who have removed the ripe pods from the trees. The pods are collected in baskets and transported to the edge of a field where the pod breaking operation begins. One or two length-wise blows from a well-wielded machete are usually enough to split open the woody shells. A good breaker can open 500 pods an hour. A great deal of patience is required to complete harvesting. Anywhere from 20 to 50 cream-coloured beans are scooped from a typical pod and the husk and inner membrane are discarded. Dried beans from an average pod weigh less than two ounces, and approximately 400 beans are required to make one pound of chocolate. Exposure to air quickly changes the cream-coloured beans to a lavender or purple. They do not look like the finished chocolate nor do they have the well-known fragrance of chocolate at this time. The cocoa beans or seeds that are removed from the pods are put into boxes or thrown on heaps and covered. Around the beans is a layer of pulp that starts to heat up and ferment. Fermentation lasts from three to nine days and serves to remove the raw bitter taste of cocoa and to develop precursors and components that are characteristic of chocolate flavour Drying the beans Like any moisture-filled fruit, the beans must be dried if they are to keep. In some countries, drying is accomplished simply by laying the beans on trays or bamboo matting and leaving them to bask in the sun. When moist climate conditions interfere with sun-drying, artificial methods are used. For example, the beans can be carried indoors and dried by hot-air pipes. With favourable weather the drying process usually takes several days. In this interval, farmers turn the beans frequently and use the opportunity to pick them over for foreign matter and flat, broken or germinated beans. During drying, beans lose nearly all their moisture and more than half their weight. Once dried, the beans can be sold. Buyers sample the quality of a crop by cutting open a number of beans to see that they are properly fermented. Purple centres indicate incomplete fermentation. The beans are sold in international markets. African countries harvest about two-thirds of the total world output; Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Cameroon are the leading African cocoa producers. Most of the remainder comes from South American countries, chiefly Brazil and Ecuador.