Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

HISTORY OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 15 later, scented profit. They noted how the tree was cultivated, and watched how this drink, this chocolatl, as the Mexicans called it, was prepared. The Spaniards were thus the first Europeans to gain know-ledge of this remarkable drink, which was at once both substantial belly-timber and kick-shaw. Quick to appreciate its commercial possibilities, they planted cacao in other of their foreign possessions. With all the finesse of their race they kept the methods of culti-vation and preparation a secret for nearly 100 years, so that though populär in Spain it was practically unknown in other countries until the next Century. Those who sing the delights of Elizabethan England should remember that it lacked many priceless things, for example, tea, the solace of old maids ; coffee that “ makes the politicians wise ” ; the prosaic potato, the housewife’s stand-by ; and above all, man s most useful weed, tobacco, and woman s most luxurious necessity, chocolate. Cacao was, however, mentioned in one or two places, namely, in MS. in the British Musuem entitled A Voyage to the West Indies and New Spain (Yucatan) made by John C hilton in the year 1560, and in the book by Bernal Diaz del Castillo on the Conquest of Mexico (1568). In a treatise by Clusius (Charles 1’ Écluse ?) on Plantete exoticae (1582) cacao seeds were figured for the first time. The earliest illustration of the cacao tree occurs in a book entitled The History of the New World, which was originally published in Venice in 1565. In this book, the a/uthor, Girolanio Benzoni, describes his adventures in tropical America. He mentions that Nicaragua contains an incredible number of parrots, and also two things not found elsewhere in the Indies “ save in Guatimala, Cape Fonduri (Honduras) and Mexico and along the shores of New Spain : a peacock