The cacao tree is a tropical plant that originated in Central and South America. It is seldom found above the 20th parallel and requires a hot and humid climate. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World, the cacao plant was already widely diffused.

A member of the Sterculiaceae family, the cacao tree grows to a height of five to eight meters (16-26 feet). It has dense foliage with perennial, oval leaves.

The various other species now cultivated are derived from hybrids of the two.

The fruits are pods that are oblong and oval in shape and 15 to 20 centimeters (5.9-7.9 inches) long. The pods weigh 500-600 grams (17.5-21 ounces). Each pod contains about 40 to 50 beans arranged in five longitudinal rows. The beans have rounded sides and two flat faces. There are two principal varieties, the most highly appreciated of which is the Cacao Criollo of Venezuela. The second is the bitter or purple Cacao Calabacillo. The various other species now cultivated are derived from hybrids of the two.

The precolumbian peoples, especially the Mayas and Aztecs, were well acquainted with the tree as a source of food and beverages and, as Columbus had observed, they used the beans as a means of exchange. Both uses were noted by Hernán Cortés in the reports he sent to the Emperor Charles V in 1519 and 1526. He wrote that “cacap [cacao] is a fruit similar to the almond that they [the natives] sell ground up and they hold it in such regard that they consider it a means of exchange throughout the region and with it they buy necessities in the markets and elsewhere.”

In Mexico, cacao beans were held in high regard and they formed the basis of a complex system of exchange. Forty beans amounted to a countle, 200 countle or 8,000 beans, was a xiquipil and three xiquipil constituted a carga. The city of Tabasco paid the Emperor Montezuma an annual tax of one carga or three xiquipil, which worked out at 24,000 cacao beans. That assured the monarch his daily ration of 30 cups of chocolate and 2,000 more to be distributed among his courtiers.

Chocolate was a perfect “pep pill,” then, assuring greater endurance and increased capacity for hard work. In the long run, that factor appears to have won chocolate wide acceptance, for regular shipments to Spain of cacao from Mexico began in 1528 and were never afterward interrupted.

There are two types of cacao, socomasco or reale, which is still cultivated in Mexico and was originally reserved for the king, court officials and warriors, and the platax, which was for general consumption. Along with the beans, Cortés sent to Spain instructions on how to transform them into chocolate.

The Catholic Church, which was suspicious of this new food from across the ocean, obstructed its diffusion, arguing that it was frivolous and could not be consumed during Lent and on fast days in general. However, Cardinal Brancatio, who was a gourmet as well as an illuminated man, pronounced chocolate an essential beverage. With that enthusiastic ecclesiastical endorsement, chocolate became the national drink of Spain, as it had been of Mexico.

The export of the beans to other countries was long prohibited but Spanish princesses married to nobles of other countries, whose dowries often included substantial quantities of cacao, clerics, who were big consumers of the beverage, and grandees of Spain on official errands of various kinds to the other courts of Europe soon popularized the practice of drinking chocolate among the continent’s first estate.

And, in the meantime, cultivation of the cacao tree had spread throughout Central and South America and was being carried on in Haiti, Trinidad, Martinique, Jamaica, the Philippines and practically all other tropical regions.

Within 200 years, all Europe had acquired a taste for chocolate but, because of its price, its consumption was mainly limited to the upper classes. It was usually drunk in the morning, as shown in many domestic scenes in the art of the period. Giuseppe Parini, a Milan poet, priest and teacher, advised his “young lord” in the satirical poem “Il Giorno” to fill his delicate stomach with “brown chocolate” as soon as he rose in the morning.

However, it was not a good idea to indulge too heavily in chocolate, because it upset the digestive system. Fifty per cent of the cacao bean consists of fat and it was a long time before processors found a way of separating it from the powered chocolate. In modern processing, the fat is removed and used to make cocoa butter, which, in turn, is employed in the preparation of confectionery as well as solid chocolate. Therefore, cocoa and chocolate differ from one another primarily in terms of their fat content.

Cooks began to make extensive use of chocolate in icing and stuffing pastries and preparing ice creams and candies.

Italy learned about cacao in the year 1600 from a report of a voyage published by Florentine Francesco Carletti, who wrote that “we made port at San Jonat, 1,600 miles from Lima…a place where there are houses occupied by Spaniards and where cacao grows, a widely celebrated fruit of great importance….This fruit is still employed as money…but its principal use is consumption as a beverage that the Indians call cioccolatte, which is made by mixing the said fruits, which are as large as acorns, with hot water and sugar, but they are first dried very well and roasted….”

Carletti may have been responsible for the fact that the Florentines were, or at least seem to have been, the country’s first producers of chocolate, reportedly supplying Cardinal Mazarin in Paris.

It was eventually decided to make the activity a monopoly and, on October 9, 1678, confectioner Giovanni Antonio Ari obtained exclusive authorization to sell bavarese and chocolate beverages.

In the 19th century, Turin’s chocolate was widely regarded as the best in Europe and the first modern chocolates appeared in that city at that time. They were called givù (or cigar tips) or diablotins (little devils).

THE MOTHER OF ALL RECIPES

The bavarois is now considered a classic dessert of international cuisine. But, in reality, it is a preparation typical of Turin, representing an elaboration, in the pastry field, of the classic hot chocolate that was drunk in the city’s cafés and was called a bevaréisa, meaning “drinkable substance” or “something to drink.”

The term was previously applied to a hot drink of tea with maidenhair fern syrup. After it was adopted for hot chocolate, the name bavarois came to identify a whole family of puddings, including strawberry, lemon and vanilla versions, that is in no way related to the German region of Bavaria.

Bavarese al Cioccolato / Chocolate Bavarois

Ingredients for 6-8 persons: 2 4/5 oz. baking chocolate - 1 cup milk - 1 tsp. vanilla extract - 4 egg yolks - 2 cups granulated sugar - 3 sheets gelatin or 1 heaping tsp. gelatin in powder - 2 cups whipped cream.

Put the milk in a pan and bring it to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla extract. If vanilla bean is used instead, allow it to infuse for 15 minutes. Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk in 1 1/4 cup sugar. When the mixture is creamy, whisk in the vanilla-flavored milk. Dissolve the gelatin, whether in sheets or powdered form, in water and blend it into the pudding. Cook the mixture over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a whisk or spoon, until it thickens. Take care it does not burn. Melt the chocolate in a bit of milk and add it, while hot, to the mixture. Blend thoroughly, pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl and let it cool. When the pudding begins to firm, fold in the whipped cream and the remaining sugar. Put the cream in a mold and chill it in the refrigerator for several hours. To unmold the bavarois, put the mold in hot water for a minute or two. Dry the bottom of the mold and upend it on a serving dish.