Chocolate

Chocolate Chocolate Definition There is some confusion about the derivation of the word "chocolate." The Merriam Webster Dictionary, and many other sources, state that it comes from the Aztec, or more accurately Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), word chocolatl. Michael Coe, Professor of Anthropology at Yale, and author of The True History of Chocolate, presents a different view. He argues that the word chocolatl appears in "no truly early source on the Nahuatl language or on Aztec culture." He cites the distinguished Mexican philologist Ignacio Davila Garibi who proposed the idea that the "Spaniards had coined the word by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa, with the Aztec one, atl." One other possibility is that chocolate is derived from the Maya verb chokola'j, which means, "to drink chocolate together." History The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) is a native of Central and South America. Today, it is cultivated around the equator, and can be found in the Caribbean, Africa, South-East Asia, and even in the South Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea. There are three main varieties of cacao trees. The most common is Forastero, which accounts for nearly 90% of the world's production of cacao chocolate, cacao, beans, word, cocoa, maya, eating, one, now, much, high, first, columbus, central, back, aztecs, acne, about, , research, phenolics, native, made, levels, however, help, food, flavor, fact, criollo, crew, contain, century, cause, aztec, america, world's, while, vessel, variety, vanilla, value, tree, tooth, time, three, sugar, spread, spanish, spaniards, south