Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 2, 1993 TAG: 9306020063
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Charles Perry LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He was right. Chocolate was the first non-alcoholic stimulant drink Europeans ever encountered (coffee wouldn't reach Italy until 1615 and tea took even longer). The Spanish were impressed by this strengthening medicine. You could travel all day after drinking a single cup in the morning, they said, and some of their doctors claimed chocolate was a perfect all-in-one food that made people "fat, fair and amiable."
It was bitter, like many traditional European medicines, so the Spanish instinctively made it into a "confection" - that is, a medicine sweetened with sugar to make it more palatable. Chocolate manufacturers were trained much like druggists or doctors, and some actually were doctors.
For about a century, chocolate was Spain's little secret, scarcely known to other Europeans. Then there was a great chocolate boom, beginning among the French aristocracy in the late 1650s and spreading quickly throughout Western Europe.
Most people say the boom was due to Louis XIV of France's marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain. True, the young queen loved chocolate, and her entourage included a maid who specialized in making it, but another factor was probably at least as important. Between 1640 and 1680, the sugar plantations of Brazil and the Caribbean expanded greatly, driving down the price of sugar on the European market by 70 percent. It can't be an accident that two bitter drinks - chocolate and coffee - became popular at the same time the sugar to sweeten them became affordable.
The drink that people called chocolate in those days wasn't much like cocoa, which is basically chocolate with the cocoa butter removed. Because this process hadn't been invented, 17th-century and 18th-century chocolate was richer than cocoa - but much harder to handle. Try melting a chocolate bar or two in a cup of hot water and you'll see why chocolate drinkers had to own a glorified swizzle stick called a "molinillo," or cocoa mill. The drink becomes a gummy mess if you don't stir it frequently.
But this was just one of the differences between chocolate and cocoa. Drinking chocolate was usually thickened with ground nuts. Since the alkaline process hadn't been invented, it was very bitter (the Aztec name "chocolatl" means "bitter water"), so it was heavily sweetened. Vanilla wasn't the only spice it was flavored with either. One old recipe calls for a pound of anise, 4 ounces of pepper and an ounce each of cinnamon and nutmeg, to say nothing of smaller quantities of musk, ambergris and rose water, to flavor 6 pounds of cocoa beans (plus 6 pounds of sugar, a pound of pistachios and a quarter pound of almonds).
And drinking chocolate was often tinted with "achiote" (annatto) - the Mexican herb that makes Cheddar cheese orange and margarine yellow - or other dyes. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a cup of chocolate was likely to be ocher-colored or brick red.
In making their chocolate this way, the Europeans were actually following the Aztec practice. Some of Montezuma's own golden bowls of chocolate were sweetened with honey, and most of the rest were flavored with various spices and herbs. Among the varieties of "chocolatl" he was served, some were dyed bright-red, dull red or orange. The Aztecs thickened their chocolate too, though with cornmeal rather than ground nuts.
One Aztec recipe noted by a Spanish observer went as follows: 100 well-toasted cocoa beans, a double handful of cornmeal masa and three flavorings - "tlilxochitl," "mecaxochitl" and "hueinacaztli." "Tlilxochitl" is simply vanilla. "Mecaxochitl" is "hoja santa," a relative of black pepper that has a strong anise flavor.
The most important chocolate flavoring, as far as the Aztecs were concerned, was "hueinacaztli." "When a merchant returned from his dusty and dangerous trading trip and wished to celebrate by giving a feast for his colleagues," writes the food historian Sophie Coe, "the first step in the preparations was to obtain cacao and "hueinacaztli."
They may well have been part of his merchandise, for they are listed among the most treasured things of the Aztecs, up there with the glistening tropical bird feathers, the jade and jewels, and the gold and shell." "Hueinacaztli" turns out to be the flower of a tropical plant named Cymbopetalum penduliflorum, which has a peppery flavor. Right into this century the Mayas were still using it to flavor a ceremonial chocolate drink called "batido," and Coe points out that when they couldn't get "hueinacaztli," they would substitute black pepper.
Among other Aztec flavorings for chocolate were the bitter seed of the "sapote" fruit, a rose-scented flower called "izquixochitl" (popcorn flower), the flowers of the Mexican magnolia and mild red chiles. So in adding pepper, anise and rose water, and thickening the drink (with nuts in place of "masa") and even in sweetening it, the Europeans were making chocolate that Montezuma would have recognized.
This recipe for grilled pork with spicy chocolate sauce is a perfect demonstration of the way the flavor of chocolate can enhance a recipe that is not sweet.
Grilled Pork With Spicy Chocolate Sauce
1 pork tenderloin, about 1 1/2 pounds
1 size-medium red onion, cut into wedges
Oil
Salt, pepper
Chocolate-Tomatillo Sauce
Cut tenderloin lengthwise into 6 strips. Pound lightly to flatten slightly. Thread on skewers with red onion wedges. Brush with oil.
Grill until onion begins to char and meat is done through. Season to taste with salt and pepper while grilling. Serve with 2 tablespoons Chocolate-Tomatillo Sauce for each serving.
Chocolate-Tomatillo Sauce
3 dried red California chiles
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 large onion, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, minced
3 jalapenos, chopped
2 tablespoons oil
1 pound tomatillos, papery husks removed, quartered
1 cup orange juice
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper
Salt, pepper
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Toast chiles in hot dry skillet until soft. Remove stems and seeds. In blender, process chiles with broth to form smooth paste. Set aside.
Saute onion, garlic and jalapenos in oil until tender.
Stir in tomatillos and orange juice. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until tomatillos are cooked and sauce forms, 20 to 25 minutes. Stir in reserved chile paste and chocolate. Heat and stir just until chocolate melts. Stir in crushed red pepper, salt and pepper to taste. Add cilantro. Keep warm while preparing pork kebabs. Makes 2 2/3 cups.
Each serving contains about: 201 calories; 158 mg sodium; 55 mg cholesterol; 11 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 0.36 grams fiber.
Serves 6.
by CNB