Gathering Cacao: Santa Cruz, Trinidad.
"Chocolate" is, therefore, a much wider term
than "cocoa," embracing both the food and the drink prepared from the cacao, and is the Mexican name, chocolatl, slightly modified, having nothing to do with the word cacao, in Mexican cacauatl.[7] In the New World it was compounded of cacao, maize, and flavourings to which the Spaniards, on discovering it, added sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and other ingredients, such as musk and ambergris, cloves and nutmegs, almonds and pistachios, anise, and even red peppers or chillies. "Sometimes," says a treatise on "The Natural History of Chocolate," "China [quinine] and assa [fœtida?]; and sometimes steel and rhubarb, may be added for young and green ladies."
In our own times it is unfortunately common to add potato-starch, arrowroot, etc., to the cocoa, and yet to sell it by the name of the pure article. Such preparations thicken in the cup, and are preferred by some under the mistaken impression that this is a sign of its containing more nutriment instead of less. Although not so wholesome, there could be no objection to
these additions so long as the preparations were not labelled "cocoa," and were sold at a lower price.
PURE DECORTICATED COCOA, HIGHLY MAGNIFIED.
Such adulteration is rendered possible by the presence in the bean of a large proportion of fatty matter or cocoa-butter, which renders it too rich for most digestions. To overcome this difficulty one or other of two methods is available: (1) Lowering the percentage of fat by the addition of starch, sugar, etc.; or (2) removing a large proportion of the fat by some