Chocolate and Commodity Patterns

            What are the lessons or themes we can take from The True History of Chocolate?  The Coes’ history is filled with facts about a period over three thousand five hundred years long.  There is so much history it is difficult to see patterns that might apply more generally to other commodities.  For a person unfamiliar with Latin American history the Coes provide a brief summary of the original inhabitants.  We learn about Olmec, Maya, Toltec and Aztec people who successively dominated pre-Columbian Central America and Mexico.  Probably the Olmec’s first processed cacao to make chocolate drinks.  After the Spanish forcefully colonized the native inhabitants, Spaniards learned that chocolate had great value.  Initially they rejected the taste of the highly spiced chocolate drink the Aztecs favored, but as wealth-seekers they were able to recognize the value of the commodity that served as a medium of exchange, and eventually the Spanish acquired a liking for the taste of chocolate.

            One theme is related to the different valuations people place on items or commodities.  Appadurai and Kopytoff discussed how people’s perceptions of things can change over time, and how items have biographies that reveal much about the people who use them.  Commodities are given cultural value by people.  Commodities are often first controlled by social elites as a way to demonstrate their personal status.  After some period of time commodities cease to be the exclusive prerogative of elites, and other social groups are allowed to enjoy them.  Just as chocolate was the drink of elites in Central America and Mexico, when it was introduced to Europe, it became an item for the wealthy.  The cost of transportation, the duties imposed by the Spanish state, and the limited quantities of chocolate in early shipments all contributed to the price and special status of the good.  Spanish aristocrats developed ritual behaviors related to the consumption of chocolate, special occasions where it was consumed with a select group of people, and with carefully crafted accoutrements: chocolate pots, cups, and saucers.  Rituals reinforce demonstrations of secular and religious authority.  There is a link between the use of chocolate in Aztec religious ceremonies and the chocolate parties given by those who hoped to influence the government of Spain.

            Copper grave goods at Varna were associated with an elite group, but eventually copper became a commodity fashioned into a variety of useful items used widely throughout the community.  After copper had been commoditized, the elite found other ways to express their status and power.  Chocolate also became a substance that common people could enjoy by the end of the nineteenth century.  In this and other ways the spread of chocolate resembled the history of sugar.  Harvesting the cacao beans was labor-intensive as was harvesting sugar cane.  Mechanization of chocolate production did not come about until Milton Hershey adopted the practices of Henry Ford and applied them to chocolate manufacture in the early twentieth century.  The commoditization of sugar was associated with increased supply and reduced price.  Dutch traders offered chocolate producers a lucrative alternative to selling their product to Spanish distributors where the government tax was imposed.  Once the European demand for chocolate was established, enterprising Europeans took chocolate plants to Africa, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.  Spain protected its interests by taking chocolate plants to the Philippines.  Where sucrose from sugar cane faced competition from sucrose from sugar beets, high quality criollo chocolate faced competition from the inferior but much hardier forestero chocolate, the type of chocolate planted around the world.  European consumers did not appear to mind the reduction in quality, but by then chocolate was mixed with large amounts of sugar which altered its taste, and the elite could satisfy their needs with expensive specialty chocolate from criollo plants.

            New commodities must be incorporated into existing cultural practices and social structures.  Europeans incorporated chocolate into the Galenic humoral system that was the foundation of their understanding of how their bodies functioned and contemporary medical practice.  Good health was a result of achieving balance among the body’s humors.  For those who enjoyed drinking chocolate the humor assigned to it was positive, but different opinions existed, not everyone agreed.  Another challenge was to determine how chocolate fit into the Catholic practice of fasting before taking the sacraments.  Liquids were accepted during the fast, but food was prohibited.  Many members of the Catholic clergy enjoyed drinking chocolate, at least the wealthy ones, and they had to decide if their practices maintained or broke the fast.  Chocolate was often defended as a substance that gave people energy and stamina.  It appears that a substance that provided calories could be determined not to break a fast just because it was a drink rather than solid food.  The illogic of that thought process is a modern distinction that was not part of contemporary thought.  Again we can contrast cultures when we compare the use of cacao in Aztec religious rituals and the way Catholics determined that their religious practices could accommodate their new fondness for drinking chocolate.