The amount of flour or starch in these so-called soluble cocoas frequently exceeds 40 per cent., and the amount of sugar 20 per cent. They have been not inaptly called “soups.”
Within the past year or two a new variety of soluble cocoa has been brought into the market. It is sold under various names, thus, ‘Theobromine, or Concentrated Cocoa,’ ‘Cocoa Essence,’ ‘Cocoatina,’ &c. We have examined many of these varieties, and find them to consist of pure cocoa deprived of about two thirds of its fat. It appears very suitable for people of weak digestion.
Obs. No warm drink that we take approaches cocoa in its nutritive character, because, while performing to a certain extent the exhilarating work of coffee or tea, it presents to the stomach a very considerable quantity of nitrogenous and carbonaceous matter; this advantage is partly due to the fact that cocoa is taken in the form of an emulsion, instead of an infusion or decoction.
Cocoa for the table is readily prepared from the soluble varieties by simply pouring boiling water upon the powder. From cocoa nibs, or flaked cocoa, the beverage is prepared by first pouring boiling water upon them, and then allowing the mass to simmer from 4 to 6 hours. The cocoa must on no account be allowed to boil, for in that case a coagulum will be formed, which cannot be dissolved in water.
COCOA-NUT OIL. A species of vegetable butter obtained from the common cocoa nut—the fruit of Cocos nucifera, the cocoa palm. It is separated from the dried kernel by hydraulic pressure. It contains olein, and a solid fat often used as a candle material. Large plantations of the cocoa palm, connected with Price’s candle company, exist in Ceylon. Cocoa-nut oil is often confounded with cocoa- or cacao-butter, which is the produce of a very different plant, namely, Theobroma cacao. See Cocinic acid, Cocoa, Stearic acid, &c.
COC′CULUS IND′ICUS. Syn. Indian berries, Indian cockles, Levant nut, Louse grains; Bac′ca Orienta′lis, Cocoulus piscator′ius, &c., L. The fruit of the Anamirta paniculata, a shrub which abounds on the sandy shores of Malabar, and several other islands in the Indian Ocean. The kernels should fill at least two thirds of the fruit.
It is a dark, tough, hard, wrinkled berry, about the size of a cherry, and possesses an intensely bitter taste. The berry consists of two parts, the husk and the kernel, the former being hard and difficult to bruise, and the latter soft and containing a large proportion of fatty matter.
Uses, &c. Cocculus indicus is poisonous to all animals, and to most vegetables. It is never employed internally in medicine, but an ointment, formed by mixing the powder with lard, has been used to destroy pediculi and in porrigo. Its active principle is picrotoxin, a peculiar needle-shaped, crystalline substance, possessing all the poisonous properties of the berry in an exalted degree, and of
which it contains about 2 per cent. Its effects on the system are, to produce giddiness, convulsions, and insensibility, frequently ending in death. A small portion of the cocculus indicus imported is used by poachers, and a still smaller quantity to destroy vermin, the remaining, and by far the greater part, being employed to adulterate beer and even wine. “In our own analytical experience we have seldom found this substance in beer purchased from a respectable house. We have detected it, however, in beers purchased in the lowest localities in London and elsewhere, but have every reason to suspect that the adulterants had been added by the publican himself, in the form of an extract known in the trade by the name of ‘B. E,’ or black extract.” (Harkness.)
Chemists and druggists are liable to severe penalties if they are found supplying cocculus indicus, or any extract of the same, to brewers or publicans. See Beer, Porter, &c.