A sweet that has a bitter side

Aztec and Maya aristocrats drank it in their most sacred rituals. Its principal ingredient was the fruit of cacao: juicy, sweet and aromatic, with light-pink seeds.

The Spaniards came and soon recognized the value of this culinary gold. They added ingredients from the Old World – sugar and cinnamon – and made it their own.

Centuries later, the Nestle bars in the supermarket have little in common with the complex flavor of the ancient xocolatl. The delicate varieties cultivated by the ancient Aztecs has been lost, according to Maricel Presilla, professor and historian of culinary culture and author of “The New Taste of Chocolate: A cultural and natural history.”

“Many years ago, the Mexicans lost the finest chocolate and it was replaced by a variety that was less sweet but more hardy,” said Presilla, who, apart from her role as a historian and a writer, is owner of Gran Cacao chocolate company and member of a family of cacao growers.

There are isolated places in southern Mexico where one can still find the chocolate of yesteryear, called “criollo (creole)”, being grown. But nowadays the majority is a more bitter variety, called “forastero (foreign)”, which must be toasted and sweetened a lot to remove the bitterness.

Ironically, one must go as far south as Venezuela, according to Presilla, to find a chocolate that approximates the sophistication of the xocolatl of the old tribes of Mexico. However, it is in Mexico that the pre-Columbian methods of preparation have survived.

“The Mexicans, who have lost the best chocolate, still preserve the most artisanal way of preparing it,” says Presilla. They grind the cacao seed in a metate and there are still places in Oaxaca and Veracruz where they ferment the seed under the earth with lime.

“The infusion is foamy and almost white,” she says. “There are still some of the very old drinks, and the cultural use of chocolate lives on.” She cites as an example the use of chocolate in the Day of the Dead altars and the churrerias where one can drink a cup of chocolate with churros in the afternoon, as has been done for centuries.

“It’s a marvelous thing, even though it’s not the same as it was,” says Presilla.