A Brief History of Chocolate
When most of us hear the word chocolate, we (39) ______ a bar, a box of bonbons, or a bunny. The verb that comes to (40) ______ is probably “eat”, not “drink”, and the most suited adjective would seem to be “sweet”. But for about 90 percent of chocolate’s long history, it was (41) _____ a beverage, and sugar didn’t have anything to do with it.
Etymologists (42) ______ the origin of the word “chocolate” to the Aztec word “xocoatl”, which referred to a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans.
Many modern historians have (43) ______ that chocolate has been around for about 2000 years, but recent research (44) ______ that it may be even older. The earliest evidence of chocolate consumption stretches back three or even four millennia, to pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica such as the Olmec. Last November, anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania announced the (45) ______ of cacao remains on pottery excavated in Honduras that could date back as far as 1400 BC.
It’s hard to pin down (46) ______ when chocolate was born, but it’s clear that it was cherished from the start. For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered (47) ______ enough to use as currency. Both the Mayans and Aztecs believed the cacao bean had magical, or even divine, properties, (48) ______ for use in the most sacred rituals of birth, marriage and death.
