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Page 3
"THE FOOD OF THE GODS."
I. ITS NATURE.
[Illustration--Drawing: "MAKE A CUP OF COCOA IN PERFECTION"]
When one thinks of the marvellously nourishing and stimulating virtue
of cocoa, and of the exquisite and irresistible dainties prepared from
it, one cannot wonder that the great Linn�us should have named it
_theo broma_, "the food of the gods." No other natural product, with
the exception of milk, can be said to serve equally well as food or
drink, or to possess nourishing and stimulating properties in such
well-adjusted proportions. Few, however, realize that in its
stimulating properties cocoa ranks ahead of coffee, though below tea.
As a matter of fact, the active principles of all three are alkaloids,
practically identical and equally effective.[1] Each derives its value
from its influence on the nervous system, which it stimulates, while
checking the waste of tissue, but the cocoa-bean provides in addition
solid food to replace wasted tissue. It is, indeed, so closely allied
in composition to pure dried milk, that in this respect there is
little to choose between an absolutely pure cocoa essence and the
natural fluid.[2] It is this which makes it invaluable as an
alternative food for invalids or infants.
[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Cacao Trees, Trinidad.]
An early English writer on this valuable product spoke truly when he
remarked: "All the American travellers have written such panegyricks,
that I should degrade this royal liquor if I should offer any; yet
several of these curious travellers and physicians do agree in this,
that the cocoa has a wonderful faculty of quenching thirst, allaying
hectick heats, of nourishing and fattening the body."
A modern writer[3] affords the same testimony in a more practical form
when he records that: "Cocoa is of domestic drinks the most
alimentary; it is without any exception the cheapest food that we can
conceive, as it may be literally termed meat and drink, and were our
half-starved artisans and over-worked factory children induced to
drink it, instead of the in-nutritious beverage called tea, its
nutritive qualities would soon develop themselves in their improved
looks and more robust condition."
Such a drink well deserved the treatment it received at the hands of
the Mexicans to whom we are indebted for it. At the royal banquets
frothing chocolate was served in golden goblets with finely wrought
golden or tortoise-shell spoons. The froth in this case was of the
consistency of honey, so that when eaten cold it would gradually
dissolve in the mouth. Here is a luscious suggestion for twentieth
century housewives, handed to them from five hundred years ago!
[Illustration--Drawing: ANCIENT MEXICAN DRINKING CUPS.
(_British Museum._)]
In health or sickness, infancy or age, at home or on our travels,
nothing is so generally useful, so sustaining and invigorating. Far
better than the majority of vaunted substitutes for human milk as an
infant's food, to supplement what other milk may be available;
incomparable as a family drink for breakfast or supper, when both tea
and coffee are really out of place unless the latter is nearly all
milk; prepared as chocolate to eat on journeys, and in many other
ways, cocoa is a constant stand-by. Travelling in Eastern deserts on
mule-back, the present writer has never been without a tin of cocoa
essence if he could help it, as, whatever straits he might be put to
for provisions, so long as he had this and water, refreshment was
possible, and whenever milk was available he had command in his lonely
tent of a luxury unsurpassed in Paris or London. For the sustenance of
invalids he has found nothing better in the home-land than a nightly
cup of cocoa essence boiled with milk.
[Illustration--Drawing: MOLINILLO (LITTLE MILL) OR CHOCOLATE WHISK.]
Add to these experiences a love for the flavour which dates from
childhood, and his admiration for this "food of the gods" will be
appreciated, even if not sympathized in, by the few who have escaped
its spell. Its value in the eyes of practical as well as scientific
men is sufficiently demonstrated by its increasing use in naval and
military commissariats, in hospitals, and in public institutions of
all classes. In the British Navy, which down to 1830 consumed more
cocoa than the rest of the nation together, it is served out daily,
and in the army twice or thrice a week. Brillat Savarin, the author of
the "Physiologie du Go�t," remarks: "The persons who habitually take
chocolate are those who enjoy the most equable and constant health,
and are least liable to a multitude of illnesses which spoil the
enjoyment of life."
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