Historical Ways to Enjoy Chocolate

Our ancestors had some interesting takes on the enjoyment of chocolate. If you’re looking for new ways to enjoy chocolate, you might find some ideas here:

• Many cultures believed chocolate had healing properties and it was used variously to treat conditions such as undernourishment, exhaustion, poor digestion, and even kidney stones. Even today, some healers in Mexico use chocolate to treat bee and scorpion stings.
• The Spanish conquistadors who brought chocolate back from south America to Spain believed that chocolate gave men the ability ‘to approach women’.
• Ladies of the Mexican aristocracy were accustomed to drinking chocolate from finely carved goblets made especially for their favourite indulgence. Such was their passion for chocolate, it was served them to every two hours – regardless of what they were doing.
• The famous mistress of King Louis XV, Madame DuBarry, always fed her lovers chocolate in bed. She claimed it gave them the stamina to satisfy her amorous desires!
• More recently, a man in California hit on the perfect Valentine’s gift for his wife: with the help of a local chocolate factory, he had himself dipped in chocolate – a whole 40 pounds of it! – and sent home to his wife.