Part One: Introduction....
The name seems to fit the commodity - the word "chocolate"
sounds firm, brittle, with the "crack" of breaking chocolate before melting into the "l" sound.
While thinking about the word's ancestry, it's necessary to
recall that most of the world now thinks of chocolate always being combined with sugar and made into a confection.
This was not always so. Unknown outside America until the mid 16th century, the flavor of the cacao bean infused in hot water was rather bitter, which was how Spanish explorers first encountered it and subsequently took the beans to Spain.
Variations developed there - adding cinnamon or vanilla, sometimes sweetening and sometimes not. The popularity of this hot drink spread widely throughout Europe. Adding condensed milk and firming fats did not begin until the 19th century, when solid confectionery chocolate as we know it now, was developed.
Part Two: Where did the word 'chocolate' come from?
Some scholars believe
that in its place
of origin the ancient name for
chocolate
was xocoatyl meaning
"bitter water,"
originating from the Aztec
language called Nahuatl.
But there is dispute about
this - since the Nahuatl
language appears not to contain that exact
word. Chocolate historians Sophie and Michael Coe believe that Spanish
conquerors living in America loved
to drink chocolate but resisted the Spanish pronunciation of the Aztec
word.
Spoken in Spanish it had a "caca" sound at the beginning - reminiscent of the universal children's word for excrement, thus rather unwelcome
in elegant society... especially when describing something brown.
To overcome this social disability, a sound from another American language - Mayan - drifted into use to make the original
Nahuatl word somewhat more respectable-sounding. 'Choco,' (Mayan for 'hot') slid into
use to replace the sound 'caca,' (Nahuatl
for 'bitter')
Here are some general knowledge questions.
1. Which
are the top three chocolate eating countries in the world
(per capita)? Choose from these countries.
|
1. The USA
|
2. Norway
|
3. Germany
|
|
|
4. Brazil
|
5. Switzerland
|
6. Belgium
|
7. The United
Kingdom
|
2. What did the Aztecs
add to their hot chocolate drink?
1. sugar 2. chili 3. vanilla
3. How many cups of hot chocolate
a day did the Aztec emperor Montezuma
drink?
1. 5 2.
15 3. 50
4. When did the first hot chocolate cafe open in London?
1. 1657 2. 1757 3. 1857
