The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-31
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

SudgeS and Is taken from the Mexican name of the drink, "chocolatl," or
 "cacahuatal." The word came into the
 English through the French, "choco-
 lat" or the Spanish, chocolate"
 And what is chocolate? Stated in
 it's simplest term, it is paste of the
 ground kernels of the cocoa bean,
 mixed with sugar, vanilla or other fla voring extract, made into cake, which
 is used for the manufacture of various
 forms of sweetmeats. or in making the
 beverage. by dissolving in boiling
 water or milk.
 But if you look at the dictionaries
 and encyclopedias you will find it a bit confusins in looking up chocolate,
 cocoa and cacoa. If you pick out choc-
 olate you will be apt to be referred to
 cocoa in some and cacoa in others. It's
 no little job to locate them, and after
 they are found it is still harder to prop erly distinguish them. The question
 of words is puzzle to those who make
 q business of studying them.
 | As a matter of nomenclature it is unfortunate that the corrupt form of 1 'cocoa," from a confusion with the l coco-nut, has become stereotyped. 1 When introduced early in the eight eenth century it was a trisyllab1e "co-
 co-a,' a mispronunciation of cacao or
 cocoa, the Spanish adaptation from the Mexican ''cacahuata1. The generic name i is. however, derived from two Greek
 words, the one meaning "god" and the l other food" and was bestowed by
 Linnaeus as an indication of the high appreciation in which he held the bev- l craze prepared from the seeds, which
 he considered fit for the gods.
 |
 But enough of the etymology. Let's | get down to something more interest
 ing, for when it comes to the discus l sion of words it is a never ending dis
 pute, for just when you think you have
 settled something definitely up arises
 an authority to challenge your conclu- | sions. It is claimed that the cacao tree is native of Central and South Amer ica, and it was cultivated by the In- dians long before the white men crossed l the Atlantic. It is now raised largely not only in Mexico, Central America,
 and the West Indies, but also in Ecua- dor, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. | It has been taken to the islands and
 countries along the Gulf of Guinea in 1 Africa, to southeastern Asia, to the
 Philippines Hawaii, Java, and even to
 Samoa and the other islands of the | South Sea.
 1 The world demand for the products
 of the cacoa tree is increasing by leaps
 and bounds, and hundreds of millions
 of pounds of 1t are annually exported
 to the various markets, for every na- l ton of Christendom delights in it as
 drink and also in candies. cakes and buildings. The Americans French British, Germans and Dutch now each consume far more of it than the Span
 iards, who once had monopoly of the 1 trade Take the case of our soldier
 boys. I daresay that next to cigar cites the best way to their hearts was
 the proffer of chocolate.
 | Although it has been manufactured in the United States for more than a cen i tury and half, it's consumption in 1860 was only about three-fifths of an ounce for each inhabitant; but in 1903 | the consumption had mounted to more
 than a pound for each man. woman and 1 child. l am sure that if any way was devised to include the amount con-
 sumed by our boys overseas in connec- l tion with the citizens at home this present census will show a larger percentage of gain than did Birming-
 ham in the one of 1910. It may be of l interest to note just how America in- creased in it's use over countries in the decade from 1893 to 1903. France had | the first place in 1893, and the United States the fifth place, while in 1903 1 the rank was as follows: United States, Germany, France, Great Britain, Holland and Spain.
 r. Now. cocoa, like cotton is graded 1 but not after the same method. It
 rather goes by districts. The various
 kinds may be placed about as follows l according to merit: Finest Caracas of | Venezuela (called Chaou, but not the well known army 'chow;' the finest
 Maracaibo (of which very little if any | IS produced of late years); the finest i Magdalena, of New Grenada, of which
 the production is small and rarely ex- | ported; Soconousco, from the state of l that name in Mexico; Java, from the 1 island of that name; the finest Guaya- l quils, from Ecuador. The eocoas from i Trinidad Surinam Grenada. Para. Ba- 1 hia and Africa are classed as good ordinaries."
 1 In commerce cocoa appears as either 1 "nibs," "flake.'' or soluble" cocoa Tn preparing the nib cocoa the seeds are | simply roasted, and the skin and husk are removed. A peculiar flavor is de- 1 veloped during the roasting process, a beverage from the nibs they are | boiled with water for some hours Flake cocoa is prepared from the nibs 1 by grinding and pressing; a consider able quantity of the fat is removed and the residue mixes more eagerly with water. There are number of so- called soluble cocoas on the market: l but the term is a misnomer, as only a very small proportion of the constit- uents of cocoa is soluble in water. A large number of the soluble cocoas especially the cheaper varieties con- tain only 50 per cent of cocoa, the re- mainder being made up of added starch and sugar: the starch becomes thick with the boiling water and suspends the cocoa in liquid The Dptch soluble cocoas are treated xuit}, corna form, of a1kali ta ~ofton ba