It is hard to believe that chocolate, as we know it, has been around for less than two centuries. The cacao bean, whose botanical name, theobroma, is Greek for "food of the gods," was probably transformed into chocolate by the Olmec people of Mexico as early as 400 B.C. And by 250 A.D., the Mayans were cultivating cacao crops. To the Aztecs, consuming chocolate, or cacahuatl as it was known, was a privilege reserved for their gods and rulers. Legend tells us that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma drank 50 cups of chocolate, xocolatl, per day, making him perhaps the greatest chocoholic of all time. According to The Chocolate Bible, cacao played an important role in the lives of the Aztecs, serving both as the base of a drink and as a form of currency.

The conquering Spaniards changed the name of Montezuma's cacahuatl to chocolatl, and although the gold-hungry Hernando Cortés thought little of the drink, he brought the cacao bean back to Spain in 1528, where it was also used as currency. This was literally a case of money growing on trees.Columbus was actually the first European to discover the cacao bean, but his search for an ocean route to India took precedent over the allure of the exotic bean. Or, perhaps he simply disliked its taste.

The beverage was thick and bitter and was flavored with cornmeal, chilies, achiote and hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to Maricel Presilla, food historian and consultant to Chocolates El Rey, a major Venezuelan chocolate producer. The clever Spaniards transformed the Mexican concoction with the addition of sugar, vanilla and water. Spain soon planted cacao trees in its colonies, but managed to keep this treasure of the New World a secret from the rest of Europe for nearly 100 years.

Once word was out, however, chocolate houses opened across Europe. Chocolate soon became the drink of choice in the royal courts, as it was thought to energize, to act as an aphrodisiac and to cure all ills. By 1765, cacao beans had been embraced in North America as the source of a medicinal tonic, prompting Dr. James Baker to open a chocolate factory in New England to manu-facture the "prescription." Baker may have been on to something. Researchers have recently discovered that chocolate and red wine share the same antioxidants. A chemist at UC-Davis found that chocolate contains phenolics, the same chemicals that act as antioxidants in laboratory tests of red wine. The study found that 1.5 ounces of milk chocolate contains about as much phenol as a five-ounce glass of red wine.

What they don't share, however, is an amicable relationship. Home cooks and professional chefs have long struggled with the challenge of creating a simpatico pairing between wine and chocolate. The best policy when choosing a dessert is to keep the sweetness level of the dessert at a lower threshold than that of the wine, according to Simi Winery Resident Chef Mary Evely. "I often replace the sweet chocolate that a recipe calls for with bittersweet chocolate," she says. "A good Port has the best chance of making a match, but when in doubt, serve coffee or tea."

Much like fine winemaking, producing high-quality chocolate depends upon a number of factors: the growing conditions, the quality and degree of acidity of the beans when picked, the proper fermentation, the manufacturer's proprietary blend of beans, and the roasting and refining process.

Chocolate is a natural product made from the bean of the cacao tree. Cacao is thought to have its origins in Brazil's Amazon basin, but it grows today in equatorial climates all over the world – Venezuela, neighboring South and Central American countries, the Caribbean, Indonesia, West Africa and Hawaii.

Cacao beans are found in the fruit, or pods, of the cacao trees; each nine-inch pod contains 20 to 50 beans. The annual yield per tree is between 20 and 30 fruit pods. Trees begin bearing fruit when they are about eight years old and can continue to produce for about 40 years. Mature trees reach up to 60 feet in the wild, while cultivated trees are topped off at 15 feet to make harvesting easier. The pods grow attached to the trunk and thicker branches of the tree. When they are ripe, they turn bright red, orange or yellow.

Once harvested, the pods are split open to reveal beans encased in a white pulp. The beans are then removed and fermented on the ground for several weeks. They are then dried in the sun for about a week, during which time they begin to develop flavor. The dried beans are classified, then packed into burlap sacks and shipped to manufacturers in Europe and the United States where they are cleaned, selected, blended, roasted and ground, determining much of the chocolate's final character in the process.

In the 17th Century, Venezuela displaced Mexico as the principal exporter of cacao, and, by 1810, it was growing and processing half of the world's cacao. A war with Spain, its main trading partner, and a coffee boom in America that displaced cocoa as the nation's most popular hot beverage, sent Venezuela's cacao trade into decline. With the discovery of petroleum at the beginning of the 20th Century, cacao plantations languished, and growers shifted their energies to the more profitable oil industry.

Venezuelan cacao farming is, however, making a comeback. "That's good news," Maricel Presilla says, "because the cacao plantation is a wonderfully sound, ecological system. Cacao grows well with other crops such as coffee, which is often grown beneath the towering cacao trees. Even small cacao farms can provide a respectable living. This has meant that the farmer has stayed on the land instead of going to the slums of Caracas. Where you see cacao, you see life."

Between 1975 and 1989 the Venezuelan government held a monopoly on cacao and bought beans from growers for a set price, regardless of quality. As a result, the quality of the cacao crop declined. In 1989, the government endeavored to reorient the country toward a market economy by eliminating previous market distortions and creating a more open internal business environment.

Jorge Redmond Schlageter, a third-generation Venezuelan and the president of Chocolates El Rey, is working with farmers to develop cultivation programs for criollo and trinitario beans. For more than 400 years, Venezuela sent most of its cacao to Europe for processing, but in 1995, El Rey became the first Venezuelan firm to export its own premium chocolate. "The world's best chocolates have always depended on Venezuelan cacao beans to impart that extra touch of fragrance and aroma," Schlageter says. "Yet, due to the fact that so little Venezuelan cacao has been traditionally available on the world market, no major company was producing chocolate using 100 percent of this prized, raw material." To this end, El Rey has established an agricultural division to grow top-quality cacao beans with the most modern techniques available and to serve as a model for other growers.

We have the New World to thank for chocolate, but during the 19th Century in the hands of the English, Swiss, Dutch and French, it became the foundation for hundreds of tempting interpretations. In 1828, a Dutch chemist named Van Houten devised a press to extract cocoa butter from the mass of roasted ground beans. Fellow Dutch chemists learned that by alkalizing cacao beans, they could reduce their characteristic bitterness. Not long thereafter, a rough-textured candy bar was created in England by Cadbury's.

The Swiss soon entered the field, inventing machinery to knead the chocolate paste until its flavor was intense and its texture silky. The first Swiss chocolate factory, F.-L. Cailler, now owned by Nestlé, was built in 1819 in a former mill near Vevy, on the shores of Lake Geneva, by François-Louis Cailler, who had learned chocolate-making in Italy. In 1879, another Swiss, Rodolphe Lindt, developed the chocolate-kneading technique known as conching, which produces a smooth-textured, solid-eating chocolate. Henri Nestlé, a Swiss baby food manufacturer, developed a technique that melded condensed milk and chocolate, creating milk chocolate in 1875 and securing Switzerland's place as the chocolate capital of the world. At about the same time, Pennsylvania's Milton Hershey substituted fresh, whole milk for condensed milk, and the Hershey Bar was born.

Swiss chocolate has preserved its world renown because its makers have maintained – and continue to improve – their chocolate technology. For example, one Swiss firm has developed a method for increasing aroma and sheen and virtually eliminating the white coating, or bloom, that sometimes appears on chocolate due to wide temperature fluctuations. The Swiss operate without any corner-cutting, using the best raw materials, which are necessary for flavor and aroma.

There are about 20 chocolate manufacturers operating in Switzerland (which makes the country a dangerous place for chocoholics on the wagon) and about 20 chocolaterie shops in Geneva alone. The country's top four producers, based on volume, are Nestlé, Tobler, Suchard and Lindt. Forty tons of chocolate products are made each day by Lindt alone.

In the Lake Geneva Region, Confiserie Zurcher in Montreaux is considered to be the best place on the rue du Casino for people-watching while sipping hot chocolate and enjoying a splendid view of the lake.

The Zurcher family was among the pioneers in the Swiss chocolate industry who, more than 100 years ago, established a chocolate empire that remains unrivaled the world over. Zurcher's first establishment opened its doors in 1879 in the Hôtel de Montreaux. Arnold Zurcher, the founder, retired after 53 years at the helm of his family enterprise. Four generations later, Zurcher is managed by Antoinette Zurcher, and it is business as usual. The family continues to sell chocolates handmade in the upstairs kitchen, including the classic Zurcher chocolate truffle in all of its irresistible variations.

Zurcher's Chocolate Master Max Müller received his training in a classic continental apprenticeship, a system still very much alive in Switzerland. "We buy the best ingredients in small quantities so they stay fresh: rich Suchard chocolate, heavy cream and butter, the finest fruits and nuts and no preservatives," declares Müller, who has been at Zurcher for most of his career. "No tub of margarine has ever invaded these premises," he adds emphatically. Carefully packaged, the truffles and other chocolate candies are shipped across Europe, to America and Japan. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, mocha truffles, Champagne-filled truffles, cherries dipped in chocolate, almonds dipped in chocolate – there is something for everyone's taste. The slim Müller, who admits to eating 15 to 20 chocolates per day, notes, "Chocolates are a happy product. As everyone knows, eating something chocolate always makes you feel better!" Although it was milk chocolate that made Swiss chocolate famous, the black chocolate, commonly known as bittersweet, is the most popular today.

Chefs and consumers now have greater choices with single-source and chocolate blends. "Don't think in terms of 'the best chocolate,'" El Rey's Schlageter cautions, "but use different chocolates in different recipes. There are different styles and flavors, just as with Burgundy, Bordeaux or Barolo."

Chocolate seems to have maintained its exotic, romantic image throughout the centuries, and it shows no sign of losing its popularity. "Chocolate is the original comfort food," Schlageter pronounces. "After mother's milk, it's the taste children love best."

Growing and Making Chocolate

Like wine grapes, cacao beans are a reflection of terroir – they develop different characteristics when grown in different regions.

• The most prized chocolate comes from the criollo cacao bean, which possesses a complex, fragrant and nutty flavor. Grown mainly in the humid climate of Central and South America, the criollo trees are fragile, and outside of Venezuela there have been virtually no new plantings for the past 50 years. The easier-to-grow forastero bean is far more abundant. Although this bean lacks the aroma and delicacy of the criollo, it accounts for about 90 percent of the world's production and is the source for most commercial chocolate. Trinitario, a third variety, is a cross between forastero and criollo. It is prolific and sturdy with flavorful beans.
• After the beans are picked, they are roasted at low heat in a large, rotary cylinder for 30 minutes to two hours. As with coffee beans, it is during the roasting process that the characteristic aromas, flavors and rich brown color develop.
• After roasting, the outer shells of the beans are removed, and the beans are cracked into small pieces known as nibs. These nibs are then heated and ground into a fine paste. When the nibs are crushed, they yield two main substances: cocoa butter and chocolate liquor. Cocoa butter is the nibs' fat, which with the addition of milk solids, sugar and vanilla, can be made into white chocolate (really not chocolate at all as it contains no chocolate liquor). Chocolate liquor is a paste containing the nonfat solids from the nibs, as well as some of the remaining cocoa butter.
• Chocolate liquor remains solid at normal room temperatures, yet liquifies at about 92 degrees – about the same temperature of the human tongue – which is the secret behind chocolate's cherished melting powers. The chocolate liquor must be finely ground in order to give the "mouth smoothness" of the finished product. Cocoa butter is often added back into the liquor along with sugar and other ingredients, such as milk, vanilla or lecithin. The additions of these and other ingredients determine chocolate flavor and type.
• When pure chocolate liquor is poured into molds, cooled and hardened, it becomes what we know as unsweetened chocolate. If chocolate liquor is pulverized, it becomes unsweetened cocoa powder, which may be "dutched" (alkalized to neutralize acidity) for a milder taste and darker color. For all dark sweet chocolate, chocolate liquor is blended with cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and vanilla. For milk chocolate, dried milk solids are added to the mix as well.
• The blended mixtures are kneaded in large, heavy machines that agitate and aerate the chocolate to create a smooth texture and well-rounded flavor. This process, called conching, can take as long as six days. Invented more than a century ago, conching helps reduce acid levels, allowing pleasant flavors to develop. Finally, the chocolate is poured into molds and carefully cooled, packaged and shipped.

  
  Food Editor Carole Kotkin is a Miami-based food writer, cooking instructor and consultant. She recently co-authored Mmmiami – Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere.