So, for those of you who know Ellen and John at Holy Cacao, you know that it is me (John) that does the writing on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.  So, first and foremost, I take full responsibility for any typos, exclusion of credit where it is surely due and for a great number of strange things that seem to come from my mind.  That said, Ellen is the more sophisticated (and significantly better educated) of the two of us.  I find my life journey with her to be a daily lesson in a beautiful side of life heretofore unknown to me.  Case in point, “A Natural History of the Senses” by Diane Ackerman.  When Ellen and I first started dating she told me that this was her favorite book.  Appropriately enough there is a wonderful section on chocolate that I feel compelled to share here.  I will split this into several entries over a week or so to not overwhelm you with a couple of pages from the book but to also allow the beauty of the story to be savored.

“What food do you crave?  Ask the question with enough smoldering emphasis on the last word, and the answer is bound to be chocolate.  It was first used by the Indians of Central and South America.  The Aztecs called it xocatl (“chocolate”), declared it a gift from their white bearded god of wisdom and knowledge, Quetzalcoatl, and served it as a drink to members of the court- only rulers and soldiers could be trusted with the power it conveyed.  The Toltecs honored the divine drink by staging rituals in which they sacrificed chocolate-colored dogs.  Itza human-sacrifice victims were sometimes given a mug of chocolate to sanctify their journey.  What Hernan Cortes found surrounding Montezuma was a society of chocolate worshipers who liked to perk up their drink with chili peppers, pimento, vanilla beans, or spices, and serve it frothing and honey-thick in gold cups.  To cure dysentery, they added the ground-up bones of their ancestors.  Montezuma’s court drank two thousand pitchers of chocolate each day, and he himself enjoyed chocolate ice made by pouring the drink over snow brought to him by runners from the mountains.”

Wow, it tuns out that Frozen Hot Chocolate and Mexican Hot Chocolate are as sacred as chocolate itself!