Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

124 THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY A little cacao butter is used in pharmaceutical pre-parations, but its main use is in the manufacture of chocolate. No other fat is quite as good for this purpose, although a fair substitute, illipé butter, and a clever imitation, a hardened oil, are now on the market. Cacao butter is an example of an important article of commerce, like agar-agar, ambergris, copra and cacao beans, which the public, under normal conditions, never sees. When 'n 1918 the world was pining for cooking fats, and beautifui blocks of cacao butter, weighing a quarter of a hundredweight, were exhibited in grocers’ Windows, the general public had not the faintest idea what it was or where it came from. The housewife found it so hard that it had to be grated to use in cakes, and the flavour which makes it so delightful in chocolate, did not by any means improve fried fish or chip potatoes. Ihe newspapers, ever anxious to help, explained that the flavour could be driven off by heating the cacao butter to 320° F. In spite of the interest shown, as soon as the price of butter, lard, and margarine dropped to more reasonable figures, the public demand for cacao butter ceased and it returned to its normal use.