Sharon Rohm, age 11, of Muncy, Pennsylvania, for her question:
Where does chocolate come from?
All our sweet candy flavors are gifts from the plant world and almost every¬body's favorite flavor is chocolate. We get its main ingredient from West Africa, the West Indies and parts of South America. However, this main ingredient tastes very strong and bitter. To make flavorsome chocolate, it must be refined and treated, then mixed with various other ingredients to tone it down.
The flavor of chocolate and cocoa is donated to the world by the cacao tree, a shady evergreen that grows in certain moist, tropical climates. It stands 20 to 40 feet high, spreading huge oval leaves that are glossy dark green above and rusty red below. It is always in bloom, with clusters of small flowers sprouting out from the bark on its trunk and branches. Each cluster forms a cucumber shaped pod that enfolds 30 to 50 beans arranged in rows. The secret taste of chocolate is locked inside these almond shaped cacao beans.
The treasure can be harvested all year because the generous cacao tree always bears an assortment of blossoms, ripe and partly ripe pods. The greenish pods are ready when they turn to purplish yellow. Then harvesters use pole handled knives to chop them from the boughs. For several days the pods just lie on the ground, while the weather softens their thick, leathery shells. Then they are opened to take out the sweet pink pulp and the wadded rows of beans inside it. This too is left on the ground. The dry air withers the stringy pulp and causes chemical changes in the beans. They now look and smell like nuggets of dark brown chocolate, but they taste very bitter.
The beans are sent to a factory to be roasted, so that their papery husks can be removed. Rollers, crushers and sifters separate the small seed germs from the rest of the beans, which now are called cocoa nibs. The secret flavor is in the nibs, but they must be treated and refined. Heavy rollers crush and melt them on granite slabs. But this dark brown liquid is much too strong to flavor a candy.
Sometimes the bitter syrup goes to other factories for its final processes. It may be squeezed to remove about half of its oily cocoa butter. This fatty substance may be sifted and refined, molded and powdered to make the necessary ingredient in a cup of hot cocoa.
Most of the dark bitter liquid keeps its cocoa butter. It is refined and processed by rollers and crushers that run non stop through four days and nights. Some of the refined liquid is molded into dark brown slabs of bitter baking chocolate. Some is mixed with other ingredients and used to add the chocolate flavor to our most popular goodies.
Centuries ago, South American Indians learned how to bring out the best in the cacao bean. They softened its bitterness with vanilla and sweetened it with sugar. But a little of this strong mixture goes a very long way. We tone it down by adding buttery fats and starchy fillers. But even this mixture is very rich. Perhaps the cacao tree meant us to save the taste of chocolate for special treats.