Thank the gods for Mexican chocolate

For all the fame (and high prices) of Belgian and Swiss chocolate, you'd think they invented the stuff. Not so. Thank southern Mexico and northern Central America for the universally craved elixir. Chocolate topped our list of Maya foods that changed the world, and legions of gourmets and chocoholics would argue it is the most important food on the planet. How did European women cope with PMS before Hernán Cortés made his foray into the New World, anyway?

Ancient food in the "new" world

Mexican chocolate will surprise anyone who grew up stirring Hershey's syrup into their milk, and it isn't anything like the lauded Swiss and Belgian varieties either. Mexicans stick close to chocolate's origins in the forests of the Yucatán, when it was truly a food. It is still consumed primarily as a drink, often to jump-start the day; for a country that originated it, very little chocolate graces the typical dessert menu (the ubiquitous flan might benefit from a chocolate infusion, come to think of it).

When Cortés and his men arrived for an audience with Moctezuma in Tenochtitlán in 1519, they found the Aztec ruler sipping "bitter water" (xocóatl) from golden goblets. The drink was concocted from ground cacao beans boiled in water, then flavored with vanilla and other tropical spices — sugar didn't come to the New World until the Spanish did.

The Aztecs encountered cacao through trade with the Maya who, along with the ancient Olmec, established cacao plantations more than 3,000 years ago. The Aztecs were so enamored that they exacted huge quantities of cacao as tribute from their many subjects. Even so, cacao was reserved for the ruling class. The Aztecs believed the great serpent god Quetzalcóatl had bestowed cacao as a gift to the human world, and xocóatl figured prominently in religious ceremonies.

Recent "discoveries" of chocolate's cardiovascular benefits and stimulation of endorphin and dopamine isn't exactly a news flash for those familiar with its history. Xocóatl was used to treat stomach ailments, fatigue, fever, kidney stones and impotence. Its marvelous properties made cacao a precious commodity. Maya plantation lords traded beans for feathers, jade and other coveted goods. Four beans could buy you a rabbit; 12 would get you an evening with a prostitute. Some Maya villages used cacao beans as currency well into the 19th century.

Modern evolution

Little wonder, then, that cacao made its way promptly back to Spain on Cortés' treasure-laden ships. The Spanish, once they discovered that adding sugar made the bitter drink more palatable, became devoted to xocoátl, keeping the recipe a secret for most of a century. In the 1650s a Frenchman figured out how to mill cacao into solid cakes, which made the drink easier to prepare. He opened a shop in London to sell his expensive novelty, and soon the moneyed class frequented fashionable chocolate houses all over the continent. The personal physician to England's Queen Anne added milk to the drink in the early 18th century — his recipe was sold to a London apothecary and then acquired by the Cadbury Brothers. In the mid-19th century, the Swiss invented a new blending process, and chocolate candy was born.

Today, royalty and common folk alike consume chocolate in an astounding variety of forms. It is still an important staple in Mexico, where the Spanish taste for sugar has caught on in a big way. It appears not only as a breakfast drink but in the mole sauces of Puebla and Oaxaca and at the traditional light evening meal, when hot chocolate is whipped into a froth with a molinillo, a ringed wooden beater invented by the Aztecs.