Google Chocolate: Interesting Chocolate Facts (and Photos)

At the recent chocolate talk and tasting here in Columbia, MO, we discussed a number of items about chocolate that are not commonly known. Some people found these points to be quite interesting, and so we decided that we should share them with all of the Patric Chocolate blog readers as well.

#1: Smooth and refined European-style chocolate bars have only existed since the invention of a machine called the "conche" in 1879 by Rudolphe Lindt, the man whose name still graces bars of Lindt chocolate. For the 3000 years, or more, that chocolate had been consumed prior to Lindt's invention, it was consumed almost wholly as a drink, either hot or cold, and mixed with water and various spices.

#2: The scientific name of the tree that bears cocoa "beans," is Theobroma cacao, and was named by Carolus Linnaeus in 1753. Theobroma means "food of the gods," and the word "cacao" is based upon the Mayan pronunciation of the tree--kakaw--which itself was borrowed from the Olmec civilization before them.

#3: (Get ready, this one is a bit long and a little technical) The fruit of a cacao tree is usually called a "pod" though it is botanically not a pod at all. Those who have wanted to be more specific have called the cacao fruit an indehiscent drupe, which means that it is a "stone" fruit, or fruit surrounding a hard, shell-covered seed (a drupe), that doesn't fall from the tree or release its seeds on its own accord (indehiscent). However, despite this common wisdom, a colleague, Steve DeVries of DeVries Chocolate in Denver, CO, recently pointed out that he had discovered that cacao, though indehiscent, is not a drupe at all. Upon reflection, this discovery seems obvious as the cacao fruit is filled with many pulpy, fruit-covered seeds, and not covered with a hard shell of any sort as is the seed of a peach, or plum, fruits which are true drupes. A photo of an open pod:

(July 2006--Click the Photo for a Larger View)

So, Patric Chocolate began to wonder what the accurate botanical classification of a cacao fruit should be, if not a drupe. With this in mind we stumbled across a paper by Douglas Lehrian and Gordon Patterson of the Hershey Foods Corporation, in a book published in 1983, that mentions quite clearly that the cacao fruit is a berry! We were a bit hesitant to rely on this information alone, with the large amount of seeming uncertainty and confusion surrounding the question of the cacao fruit, but after checking back with DeVries, who himself verified with some experts in the field, it seems that we can be relatively sure that the cacao fruit is indeed a berry. Who knew?

#4: So, now that we are pondering what it means for the cacao fruit to be a berry, it actually makes quite a bit of sense that this would be the case, as many of the chemicals found in other berries, such as the blueberry, are also found in cacao fruit. Some of the most well-known of these chemicals come from a class called polyphenols which are powerful antioxidants. In fact, the same polyphenol that gives blueberries their blue-purple color is responsible for the purple color in raw forastero cacao seeds, though most people will never have the opportunity to see a purple cacao seed, as the colorant is converted into a colorless compound during a post-harvest fermentation process long before the seeds are ever made into chocolate.

#5: Finally, another item of interest that is not well known, is that unlike the average fruit tree, which grows fruit in many parts of its canopy, the cacao fruit actually grows primarily on the trunk of the cacao tree, and to some extent on the primary branches, a behavior termed "cauliflory." Here are a few photos to give you a better idea of this peculiarity: