little, but from time to time a liquor
prepared from cocoa, and of an aphrodisiac
nature, as we were told, was presented to
him in golden cups.... I observed a number
of jars, above fifty, brought in, filled with
foaming chocolate, of which he took
some....One of the first detailed accounts of the
original chocolate comes from the History of
the New World (1564) by the Milanese
Girolamo Benzoni, who traveled in Central
America. He remarked that the region had
made two unique contributions to the world:
Indian fowls,” or turkeys, and “cavacate,” or
the cacao bean.
Food Words: Cocoa, Chocolate
The word cocoa comes via the Spanish
cacao, which in turn came via the Maya
and Aztec from a probable Olmec word
kakawa coined 3,000 years ago. Chocolate