Friday, 1. August 2008
Topic: food - on August 1, 2008 at 10:19:04 AM CEST
World’s oldest chocolate found at Paso de la Amada in Mexico
Chemical traces from an ancient pottery vessel from southeastern Mexico showed that it had been used for a chocolate beverage more than 3,500 years ago, produced in the region which the Aztecs conquered for its rich orchards of cacao trees.
Although cacao (or cocoa) beans are grown today in many parts of the world, the tree which bears the seed pods, Theobroma cacao, is native to southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. The Spanish conquistadors remarked that a drink made from the toasted and ground beans, whisked, frothed and flavoured with hot chilli peppers, was consumed by the elite of the Aztec Empire. Other parts of the pod, including its soft inner pith, were fermented into various beverages.
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