Ithaca College

With John Henderson of Cornell University, students from the Archaeology of Food class present:

"An Early History of Chocolate:
A Taste of Mesoamerican Anthropology, Archaeology, and Chocolate"

Thursday, February 19
7:00 p.m.
Taughannock Falls Room, Campus Center

This event is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Educational Grants Initiatives program in the School of Humanities and Sciences dean's office.

Chocolate was unknown to the Western world until the 16th century, when Spaniards invading what is now Mexico learned of it from the Aztecs. Chocolate drinks were lavishly served in the court of the Aztec emperor and were an essential component of all important ceremonial and social occasions among the Aztecs and their neighbors throughout Mesoamerica. So valuable were the cacao seeds from which chocolate is made, they served as a form of money in Mesoamerica.

Cacao can be traced deep into Mesoamerican history: it was being served on important occasions many centuries before the Aztecs made it the focus of conspicuous consumption. New archaeological evidence from the early village of Puerto Escondido in Honduras shows that Mesoamericans were serving beverages made from cacao at important events before 1000 BC.

The earliest serving vessels suggest that the original cacao beverages were not chocolate-flavored drinks made from the seeds, but fermented drinks made from the pulp surrounding the seeds.