chapter on adulteration) it has come legally to have a very definite
significance. If this method of distinguishing between cacao and cocoa
were the accepted practice, the perturbation which occurred in the
public mind during the war (in 1916), as to whether manufacturers were
exporting "cocoa" to neutral countries, would not have arisen. It should
have been spelled "cacao," for the statements referred to the raw beans
and not to the manufactured beverage. Had this been done, it would have
been unnecessary for the manufacturers to point out that cocoa powder
was not being so exported, and that they naturally did not sell the raw
cacao bean.

_Chocolate._--This word is given a somewhat wider meaning. It signifies
any preparation of roasted cacao beans without abstraction of butter. It
practically always contains sugar and added cacao butter, and is
generally prepared in moulded form. It is used either for eating or
drinking.



_Cacao Beans and Coconuts._

In old manuscripts the word cacao is spelled in all manner of ways, but
_cocoa_ survived them all. This curious inversion, _cocoa_, is to be
regretted, for it has led to a confusion which could not otherwise have
arisen. But for this spelling no one would have dreamed of confusing the
totally unrelated bodies, cacao and the milky coconut. (You note that I
spell it "coconut," not "cocoanut," for the name is derived from the
Spanish "coco," "grinning face," or bugbear for frightening children,
and was given to the nut because the three scars at the broad end of the
nut resemble a grotesque face). To make confusion worse confounded the
old writers referred to cacao _seeds_ as cocoa _nuts_ (as for example,
in _The Humble Memorial of Joseph Fry_, quoted in the chapter on
history), but, as in appearance cacao seeds resemble _beans_, they are
now usually spoken of as beans. The distinction between cacao and the
coconut may be summarised thus:

                      Cacao.                     Coconut.

Botanical Name     Theobroma Cacao             Cocos nucifera Palm
                   Tree                        Palm

Fruit              Cacao pod, containing       Coconut, which with outer
                     many seeds (cacao beans)    fibre is as large as a
                                                 man's head

Products           Cocoa                       Broken coconut (copra)
                   Chocolate                   Coconut matting

Fatty Constituent  Cacao butter                Coconut oil




CHAPTER I

COCOA AND CHOCOLATE--A SKETCH OF THEIR HISTORY

    Did time and space allow, there is much to be told on the
    romantic side of chocolate, of its divine origin, of the
    bloody wars and brave exploits of the Spaniards who conquered
    Mexico and were the first to introduce cacao into Europe,
    tales almost too thrilling to be believed, of the intrigues
    of the Spanish Court, and of celebrities who met and sipped
    their chocolate in the parlours of the coffee and chocolate
    houses so fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth
    centuries.

    _Cocoa and Chocolate_ (Whymper).


On opening a cacao pod, it is seen to be full of beans surrounded by a
fruity pulp, and whilst the pulp is very pleasant to taste, the beans
themselves are uninviting, so that doubtless the beans were always
thrown away until ... someone tried roasting them. One pictures this
"someone," a pre-historic Aztec with swart skin, sniffing the aromatic
fume coming from the roasting beans, and thinking that beans which
smelled so appetising must be good to consume. The name of the man who
discovered the use of cacao must be written in some early chapter of the
history of man, but it is blurred and unreadable: all we know is that he
was an inhabitant of the New World and probably of Central America.



_Original Home of Cacao._

The corner of the earth where the cacao tree originally grew, and still
grows wild to-day, is the country watered by the mighty Amazon and the
Orinoco. This is the very region in which Orellano, the Spanish
adventurer, said that he had truly seen El Dorado, which he described as
a City of Gold, roofed with gold, and standing by a lake with golden
sands. In reality, El Dorado was nothing but a vision, a vision that for
a hundred years fascinated all manner of dreamers and adventurers from
Sir Walter Raleigh downwards, so that many braved great hardships in
search of it, groped through the forests where the cacao tree grew, and
returned to Europe feeling they had failed. To our eyes they were not
entirely unsuccessful, for whilst they failed to find a city of gold,
they discovered the home of the golden pod.

[Illustration: OLD DRAWING OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN; AT HIS FEET A
CHOCOLATE-CUP, CHOCOLATE-POT, AND CHOCOLATE WHISK OR "MOLINET."