- By Charlotte Brown
- October 08, 2024
NAME A FOOD PRODUCT THAT, FOR YOU, IS SYNONYMOUS WITH PLEASURE AND COMFORT... CHANCES ARE YOU'LL ANSWER: CHOCOLATE! SINCE ITS DISCOVERY BY THE CONQUISTADORS IN THE EARLY 16TH CENTURY, THIS PLEASURE FOOD HAS BEEN IN EVER-GROWING DEMAND.
Text by Éric Birlouez (Featured in the October 2024 issue of Pastry1 Magazine)
Creative ideas and recipes based around a single flavor
To meet this demand, global production has more than doubled over the past thirty years. This period saw the emergence of new consumers, mainly in Eastern Europe, Russia and, above all, Asia.
More specifically in China and India, where the rising standard of living of the urban middle classes has gone hand in hand with the desire to enjoy chocolate. However, the average Chinese or Indian person eats just 200 grams a year, well behind German (11.1 kg in 2019) or Swiss (10.3 kg) consumers. Our fellow citizens consume "only" 3.4 kg per year, with one cultural singularity: the French are crazy about dark chocolate. But this pleasurable product remains inaccessible to the poorest customers, in particular those who produce and harvest cocoa beans in developing countries.
The world chocolate market is made up of five million small planters facing just four multinational companies
The world chocolate market has become increasingly one-sided: it is made up of five million small-scale "planters" facing just four multinational firms. Between them, they handle almost 70% of the world's cocoa bean production. These four large "grinders" grind and roast the beans into a paste, which they then sell to the "chocolatiers", i.e. the manufacturers of bars and other products containing cocoa. Their names are well known: the American Mars and Mondelez (formerly Kraft), the Swiss Nestlé and Lindt & Sprüngli, and the Italian Ferrero. By 2021, some sixty tropical countries had produced cocoa beans. But two-thirds of global volumes were supplied by the trio of Côte d'Ivoire (39% of total), Ghana (15%) and Indonesia (13%). All it takes is for one of these three countries to experience climatic, sanitary (virus or fungus attacks) or political problems (such as the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire a few years ago) to threaten a shortage of cocoa and a surge in prices. Another major risk to production is climate change.
The sacred beverage of the Mayan and Aztec gods
The Olmecs were the first to cultivate and domesticate the cocoa tree around 3,000 years ago in southern Mexico. From the pulp surrounding the seeds, they prepared a fermented beverage. A few centuries later, the Mayas of the Yucatan peninsula used the beans to make the beverage we call chocolate. In the early 14th century, the Aztecs who had settled in central Mexico were also growing cocoa and preparing xocoatl. The great dignitaries consumed the latter during religious rituals alternating dance, invocations of divinities and human sacrifice. The Aztecs attributed fortifying, therapeutic and aphrodisiac virtues to chocolate, a rare and precious product.
The Olmecs were the first to cultivate and domesticate the cocoa tree, 3000 years ago
In 1519, after the conquest of Mexico by Spaniard Hernan Cortés, a few sacks of cocoa beans were shipped to the court of Charles V. But the response to this exotic novelty was less than enthusiastic.
When Spain and France discovered chocolate
Legend has it that a Carmelite nun from a Mexican convent came up with the idea of softening the bitterness of the beverage by adding cane sugar and replacing the chili pepper with vanilla, which the Aztecs used to flavor their xocoatl. The new recipe proved extremely popular, and chocolate soon became one of the favorite drinks of the Iberian aristocracy.
The French discovered chocolate in two stages. Production began in Bayonne in 1609. To escape the Inquisition, Jews from Portugal and Spain took refuge in the Basque town. Custodians of chocolate-making know-how, the exiles began to make chocolate here. But it wasn't until 1660, when Spanish princess, Maria-Teresa, married the young Louis XIV, that the French court showed any interest in the beverage. She succeeded in sharing her passion for chocolate with most of the courtiers at Versailles. This remained a luxury available only to the wealthiest. Under Louis XV, the craze grew even stronger: it was the favorite drink of the Marquise de Pompadour and the Countess du Barry, favorites of the king. In addition to its fortifying and digestive virtues, the beverage was still reputed to be an aphrodisiac.
The three most widespread cocoa varieties are trinitario, criollo and forastero
Spain did not keep its monopoly on chocolate for long. As soon as other European nations discovered the secrets of growing cocoa and making chocolate, they set up plantations in their colonies, employing slaves rounded up from Africa by slave ships.
And the chocolate bar was born...
For a century and a half, Europeans consumed chocolate only in liquid form. It was only in 1674 that the first chewy chocolate candies appeared in London. In 1825, Dutchman Conrad Van Houten invented a process for obtaining a fine cocoa powder with which to make a smooth beverage. The very first chocolate bar didn't see the light of day until 1847, following trials by an Englishman named Fry. In 1875, Swiss national Daniel Peter created the milk chocolate bar. In France, at the end of the 19th century, the Poulain factories were running at full capacity, as was the chocolate factory set up in Noisiel, Seine-et-Marne, by pharmacist Emile Menier. In 1925, Forest Mars invented the famous chocolate bar that still bears his name.
Boosted by European demand, bean production rose rapidly from 20,000 tonnes in 1850 to 375,000 tonnes in 1920. Alongside industrial production, high-end artisan chocolate-making began to develop, particularly in Switzerland, Belgium and France. Today, artisans are increasingly emphasizing the provenance of their raw materials, i.e. they specify the area from which the cocoa beans they use originate. These may correspond to different cocoa varieties, of which the three most wide- spread are trinitario, criollo and forastero.
Sources : Dictionnaire gourmand. Anne-Marie BAYLAC. Editions Omnibus. 2014.
Du cacao au chocolat, l’épopée d’une gourmandise. Michel BAREL. Editions QUAE. 2009.
Histoire naturelle et morale de la nourriture. Maguelonne TOUSSAINT-SAMAT. Editions Larousse, coll. In Extenso. 1997