MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH CHOCOLATE
When my mother passed away and my siblings and I had to clean out my parents’ estate, there were many poignant surprises to be discovered. One such surprise was a 10 lb. bag of chocolate chips tucked under the staircase. Mom always had a bag of chocolate chips hidden somewhere in the house, though usually I would find it in the kitchen, in the bottom drawer under the napkins. Dad had his chocolate hiding places as well, he kept his annual Christmas box of See’s™ chocolates hidden in his den. Though our family See’s™ chocolate box would be devoured within days, Dad’s would often last six months, unless we discovered it, then we would leave little notes for him in the empty brown paper wrappers. “I was here.”
I have a love affair with chocolate and I’m not alone. Cultures fell in love with chocolate long ago deep in the Amazon basin of South America. The Theobroma cacao tree first grew there and then was cultivated by other cultures in Mesoamerica, such as the Olmecs, the Mayans and the Aztecs.
As a student of Chicano Studies and Bilingual Education at Washington State University, I enjoyed studying the Aztec culture. I identified with Montezuma’s love affair with cacao. Montezuma was the last Aztec emperor of what is now present-day Mexico City. It is said that the Aztec ruler drank up to fifty cups of chocolate a day from a golden chalice. That’s truly my kind of guy! Apparently he drank it bitter and cold. Froth was critical, so it had to be poured in such a way to generate foam. An average cup of this cacao or xocoatl in early Mesoamerica would include water, chili pepper or cayenne pepper, unsweetened cocoa powder, and vanilla extract. The drink was reserved for only the elite in the Mayan and Aztec societies. It was considered a holy drink, the food of the gods.
The cacao tree is precious; it takes 400 cocoa beans just to make one pound of chocolate. Imagine that, one tree only produces 2,500 beans. And it takes a tree about five years to become a productive tree. In fact, chocolate was so precious in South and Central America, that cacao beans were used as currency. The Aztecs traded with regions or relied on tribute from tribes they conquered who grew cacao beans.
Spanish explorers such as Hernan Cortez, in the 16th century identified the value of the cacao as well, and brought it back to Spain where they modified the bitter drink by adding sweeteners and spices. Among the Spanish elite, there were rumors that cacao had aphrodisiac properties. The love affair with chocolate spread through trade and cacao ended up growing on plantations in European colonies.
Today, 70 percent of the world’s cocoa doesn’t come from Central or South America, it comes from West Africa. 50 million people worldwide depend on chocolate for their livelihood. The West African country of Cote d’Ivoire produces 43% of the world’s chocolate. Sadly, the farmers themselves only average $1 a day. A whopping 7.5 million tons of chocolate was consumed in 2024. Who do you think consumed the most chocolate? The Swiss won at 25 lbs. per person a year. We Americans trailed at 11 lbs. per person.
As our love affair with chocolate continues, guard it well, my friend, maybe not under your staircase, but perhaps in a drawer in the kitchen tucked under some napkins where you can get to it if you need a little pick me up in your day! Remember, it is an antioxidant and can improve your heart health, brain function, and mood elevation so they say, and I’m inclined to believe it. To quote Charles Schulz, “All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and again doesn’t hurt.”
*Article published in Brazos Life, The Facts newspaper 7/9/25
