Cultures and countries are in constant communication and contaminate each other through the exchange of products and people, which is why many foods that we habitually consume today have very ancient and above all very distant origins. Cocoa is one of these, a food that has made a long journey to arrive in Europe, where it is highly appreciated today.
Cocoa originates from Central America where pre-Columbian civilizations, even before the Maya and Aztecs, consumed a drink obtained from cocoa beans considered a divine gift, so much so that its scientific name is Theobroma cacao , or “Food of the Gods”. For consumption in the Old Continent, however, we had to wait for the voyages of numerous explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés who, starting from 1492, set sail for the Indies - in reality a new continent: America - and returned with raw materials and gifts for the Spanish courts.
At the beginning, cocoa was a food only for royal and aristocratic families who added cane sugar to this drink with a strong flavor and rich in aromas and perfumes to make it sweeter - the famous Indian broth cited in a famous book by Piero Camporesi, a scholar from the University of Bologna -, while starting from the nineteenth century, it became a popular food throughout Europe thanks to the contribution of the Swiss and Dutch who developed modern processing techniques, creating different consistencies from cocoa powdered into bars and starting to produce the different types of chocolate we know today. Over the course of three centuries, cocoa thus became a common food throughout the European continent, changing the tastes and eating habits of the Old Continent.
Today the most prestigious and renowned chocolate productions are indeed European, from Switzerland to Austria, passing through Italy. Among the most popular chocolates in our country are those of Modica and Perugia but the city considered the historical homeland of Italian chocolate is Turin and Piedmont in general. Here chocolate was institutionalized and spread by the royal house of Savoy and the city soon specialized in the production of chocolate, a tradition it still retains today.
In Austria, chocolate gave life to the traditional Viennese hot chocolate served with the addition of whipped cream and then innovated the field of pastry making with the famous Sacher Torte. Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace, pays irreverent homage to its most illustrious citizen by promoting the typical "Mozart balls". Switzerland has also built a solid chocolate tradition thanks to prominent figures such as Rodolphe Lindt, but the journey of chocolate continued in the Netherlands, France and Great Britain with typical productions of great value.
To reconfirm how this food is well rooted in tradition and in the collective imagination, there is also its presence in numerous films and books such as "Chocolat", "Like Water for Chocolate" or "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". of Chocolate”, in the world of music with “A Chocolate Sundae on a Saturday Night” by Doris Day, or the unforgettable “Cacao Meravigliao” television hit by Renzo Arbore.