Herb Companion

A Match Made in Chocolate

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Herbal flavors enhance the romance in sinfully rich desserts for...

Ask anyone, “When you think of romance or love, what food comes to mind?” Most everyone gives the same answer: chocolate.

Chocolate has been called an aphrodisiac, a stimulant, and an addiction. I agree with all of these descriptions. Botanists must have concurred; they gave the cocoa bean tree the name Theobroma cacao — “food of the gods.” The word chocolate comes from the Aztec and Mayan xocoatl, which translates as “bitter drink.” In the early sixteenth century, Hernán Cortés recorded how the Aztecs ground cocoa beans to make a paste that they used to prepare a beverage they believed gave them power and energy. They mixed the paste with chiles, vanilla, and spices. The Aztec ruler Montezuma and his court were purported to have consumed copious amounts of it daily, especially when the sovereign visited his harem. When Cortés returned to Spain and introduced this hot chocolate drink, the Europeans added sugar to it. The sweetened chocolate eventually took Europe by storm.

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