Chemistry of Chocolate Essay

Chocolate is made from the cacao bean. According to Rodney Lipson, â€Å"Cacao has been a cultivated crop for at least three thousand years, probably quite a bit more. The people who first utilized Cacao were the inhabitants of what is now Venezuela† (Lipson) This group of people would eventually spread the cacao bean in northwestern South America. Cacao was clearly highly valued by these people and they spread it northward through trade with their neighbors. It was probably the Maya, over 1500 years ago, who brought Cacao to Yucatan in what is now Mexico. The Aztecs who got Cacao from the Maya, used Cacao in a number of ways, one common way was as a bitter spice in food and possibly also as a base for pasta or bread, but the most well-known way that Cacao was as a drink. While the Maya drank Chocolate hot, the Aztecs seem to have often taken it cold. The Aztecs called the drink, and apparently the bean as well, Xocoatl. From this word comes the pan-European word Chocolate. When Europeans first made contact with the Aztec civilization, Cacao was being cultivated and used extensively. The Spanish Conquistadors quickly noticed the benefits of Chocolate and used it to keep their armies marching long distances with little food. From the Aztecs the Spanish took it to Europe. Chocolate was widely used in Catholic countries after 1569 when Pope Pius V declared that Chocolate, the drink, did not break the fast, despite the hearty nutritional aspects of Chocolate† (Lipson). Chocolate continued to be moved from country to country through trade and exploration. Soon chocolate found its way into America, and according to Lipson, â€Å"In 1900 Milton Snavely Hershey, a Mennonite from Pennsylvania, began producing milk-chocolate bars and â€Å"kisses† with great success. He was anti-alcohol and saw Chocolate as a good, profitable alternative. His empire grew even larger during World War I, when Milton Hershey encouraged the US Army to add four Hershey bars to each soldiers daily ration† (Lipson). Because of Hershey, chocolate was now affordable for everyone, and his methods of making chocolate are still used today. Peter’s chocolate tells us that chocolate is made by, â€Å"storing the cacao beans in silos or warehouse. These rooms are well aired, kept at cool temperature and the humidity regularly checked. Before the production stage, the beans are sorted and cleaned. Cocoa does not acquire the richness of its color and the fullness of its flavor until it is roasted. The degree of care given to this operation has considerable influence on the ultimate quality of the end product – either cocoa powder or chocolate. When roasting is complete, the beans are cooled and their thin shells removed by a winnowing machine. The husked and winnowed beans are called â€Å"nibs†. Here’s where the first secrets of the chocolate manufacturer come in. The nibs are blended, combining as many as eight to ten varieties. It is control of these subtle mixtures that maintains a constant quality and brings out the flavor of each particular variety of chocolate. The roasted and winnowed nibs then pass through refining mills and are ground. The heat generated by grinding causes the cocoa butter or fat to melt and form a fine paste or liquid known as chocolate â€Å"liquor. † This goes to large hydraulic presses which remove most of the cocoa butter. The â€Å"cake† which is left may eventually be made into cocoa powder. The cake goes through several processes in which it is crushed, milled and finely sifted. After the cocoa paste, cocoa butter, milk, sugar and additional flavorings have been carefully weighed out in accordance with the recipe, they go into a mixer where rotating, kneading arms thoroughly mix all the ingredients. The result is a homogeneous, paste-like mixture which is already pleasant to taste, but still feels gritty to the palate. The chocolate is put in a conching machine. While in the machine, the chocolate turns over in the conching machine, a controlled amount of air ventilates the mass, allowing the full aroma and flavor to develop. The still-warm conched chocolate is placed in a tempering machine so that it can be slowly and steadily cooled. The tempering prevents separation in the chocolate when it’s filled into bar molds and hardens† (Peter’s). This results in the average chocolate bar.