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A sweet treat with a long story…

Related Images

  • Fig.1: Cocoa and Chocolate- [Introducing Cacao](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2201/2821/files/46fd8d8f0bcc25ff7d0a12897bca19ce_grande.jpg?v=1502387108)
  • Fig. 2: [Ancient depiction of chocolate](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/42/77/80/427780129461eeebc77e56accba69a50.jpg)

This is a bar of chocolate. You’ve probably bought and eaten many of these, in all kinds of variations. But did you know that “chocolate” as we know it today is a relatively recent invention? Of course, chocolate, in the form of a drink, has been consumed for thousands of years, long before Europeans discovered it, as you can see in Figure 2. For example, chocolate was widely consumed throughout Mesoamerica, which is comparable to today’s Central America. Some of the first references to chocolate come from that historical region.See Marcy Norton’s 2006 article "Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics." in The American Historical Review 111 (3): p 670-672. Once it arrived in Europe, it took some time before it ended up in the form of the beloved chocolate bar. Read on for a more detailed description of the journey of chocolate to and throughout Europe.