Chocolate Consumption as Status Symbol

Who does not like chocolate? Almost everyone likes it. It was sweet, variety of shape and easily obtainable. How chocolate found?

Chocolate is produced from cocoa (Theobroma cacao) that was originally grown in the Northern Amazon region to Central America. Olmec people take advantage and make chocolate along the Gulf coast in southern Mexico around 1,000 years BC.

Cacao or cocoa is very important in Meso-American culture at the time, that the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec. They make use of cocoa beans as currency in these regions. Estimated Mayan drinking chocolate began between the years 450 BC-500 BC. It is said that chocolate consumption is considered as an important status symbol in those days.

The 1500's, Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez brought cocoa seeds to the Europe. At that time they did not know how to process chocolate that they bring because it tastes very bitter. Cortez had the idea to add sugar to the chocolate drink. So, to create a very delicious chocolate drink. Chocolate drink became very popular in Europe. Then in the late 1800s the United Kingdom and Switzerland makes a wide range of chocolate products. Since then until now, Switzerland and the United Kingdom became a producer of high quality chocolate products with delicious taste.

The taste of chocolate is still difficult to define. In the book Emperors of Chocolate, Joel Glenn Brenner describes recent research on taste. It seems that chocolate is created from a mixture of 1,200 kinds of substances, without one dominant flavor. Some of the substances not tasty when standing alone. Therefore, up to now there is no artificial chocolate flavor. According to the American Dietetic Association, the purer the chocolate we consume, the greater its benefit for our bodies. Carbohydrates are chemical compounds formed in the chocolate that producing serotonin, which helps stimulate the brain so that we feel relaxed and calm. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | SEPTI | PIKIRAN RAKYAT 01022013]

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