Dear Friends:
The subject of chocolate earlier this year (January
2002) received many favorable comments. I hailed the combination of
pleasure and health values of chocolate to the delight of many, who were
kind enough to write me.
Few know the history of chocolate and that is the purpose of
this communication. Chocolate is found around the world, but most through a
broad band stretching from a Tropic of Capricorn to the Tropic of Cancer.
It existed in ancient American cultures, including the Maya and Aztec. The
Aztec people drank a beverage made from ground cocoa beans for
celebrations. Montezuma was purported to drink over 500 cups of chocolate
each day, which seems astonishing. Chocolate was drunk at the time of
sacrificial ceremonies. Spanish explorers introduced this new world
delicacy into Iberian aristocracy, which later spread from Spain to Italy.
Louis IV often served coffee at the court in Versailles. Marie Antoinette
had hear own private chocolatier.
In 1900 Milton Hershey produced the first candy bar,
allowing ordinary persons to purchase chocolate at only a nickel. During
the intervening time, chocolate has traveled to the moon with the Apollo
astronauts. Like fine Wine, there are regions and vintages of great
chocolate.
There we very few things that we take into our body that
are as pleasurable and health as chocolate. Chocolate is truly the fruit of
the Gods.
I'll be in touch next month.
Your friend,
