Chocolate drinks were created by the Olmecs, Mayans, and later Aztecs in what is now modern day Mexico and Central America. However, these early drinks were not like modern hot chocolate. They were likely served cold and unsweetened, but flavored with spices and flowers. Cacao was a crop of significant value and would have been enjoyed by mostly the wealthy. The uses of the chocolate drink were primarily medicinal and ceremonial. It was used to stimulate the nervous systems of apathetic, exhausted, or feeble patients. Another use was to improve digestion, where cacao counters the effects of a stagnant or weak stomach and also stimulates kidney and bowel function. It has also been used to treat mental fatigue, anemia, poor appetite, and fever.
I find this interesting because, while I never thought of hot chocolate being medicinal in a traditional way before, it makes sense to me in a soothing and comforting way. Of course, it can bring comfort physically just by being a hot beverage you drink when it is cold, but more importantly it can bring comfort mentally. It reminds me of when I was a child and the magic of Christmas. When I think about hot chocolate, I can also see myself sitting by a fireplace reading a book with a cup by my side. The sound of crackling firewood and a howling wind outside gives the scene ambiance. This is not something I actually experience, but I think that romantic vision represents how it is a cure for the stress and anxiety of life.
Later Spanish missionaries brought chocolate to Europe, where it would evolve into something more recognizable: Sweet and warm chocolate. It remained a treat for nobility, however as time went on the popularity of chocolate would grow and eventually become a beverage on par with tea and coffee. Even closer to modern hot chocolate is a beverage made in Jamaica at least as far back as 1494 where chocolate is boiled with milk and cinnamon. It was later popularized by Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish botanist, who brought it to Europe in the early 1700s.
The leading causes of chocolate becoming more accessible in this era was the increased agricultural production of cacao beans and the development of chocolate processing methods. One of these innovations, the cocoa press made by Coenraad Van Houten made a new cacao product that could be used for a different kind of chocolate drink. That being hot cocoa. Hot cocoa is made from the pressed cocoa powder with most of its cocoa butter removed. Hot chocolate is a cocoa product with its cocoa butter intact. They end up with somewhat different flavors. Hot chocolate has a more intense flavor and has a richer and thicker texture. Hot cocoa is sweeter and has a lighter and thinner texture. However, hot cocoa was cheaper than hot chocolate and this meant that chocolate would no longer be a drink only for the upper classes.
In the late 1950s, Charles Sanna created the first instant hot cocoa that could be mixed with hot water. His family’s company, Sanna Dairy Engineers, had supplied troops with powdered creamer during the Korean War and overproduced to meet their agreement with the U.S. military. Sanna needed to figure out what to do with the surplus, and he had an idea. “I believed it would make an excellent ingredient for a hot cup of cocoa,” so he got to tinkering and tried out different recipes at his home in Menomonie, Wisconsin, and had his children and local students taste test. The formula he landed on was a combination of powdered creamer, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and hot water. Although he would continue to tinker with the recipe, in one of the changes he would replace the creamer powder with low-fat milk powder because it had better shelf life and was cheaper. The product that he ultimately sold in grocery stores under the name “Swiss Miss” is credited with launching America’s instant hot cocoa industry.
Charles Sanna was born in 1917 to Italian immigrant parents. His family would move around in various places before settling in Wisconsin, where Charles Sanna would study mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He started his career in the steel industry, but later worked for the Navy overseeing construction and repair of submarines during WW2. He intended to continue working in the steel industry after the war, but his father convinced him to join the family business. He came up with a way to prolong the shelf life of dehydrated coffee creamers by reducing the amount of oxygen in the packets and also designed a huge milk dryer that helped the Sanna Dairy produce and patent a nonfat dry milk product called Sanalac. However Swiss Miss was arguably his most popular invention. The polar explorer Will Steger packed enough Swiss Miss to make more than 2,000 cups on his dog-sled journey across Antarctica in 1989. The Sanna family would sell their company to Beatrice Foods in 1967, which in turn was purchased by Conagra in 1990. Conagra estimates that it sells more than 50 million boxes each year.
Whenever winter comes and the weather outside gets unpleasantly cold I spend more of my time indoors. Being mostly sedentary indoors and even with everything I could need to distract myself I still end up thinking. I am reminded of a quote by John Green in the introduction of his book The Anthropocene Reviewed, “I had only my thoughts–at times drifting through a drowsy sky, at other times panicking me with their insistence and omnipresence. During these long, still days, my mind traveled all over, roaming through the past.” In this he was talking about his experience with labyrinthitis, but I feel it describes the feeling of being locked inside during winter. Even coming out of the house, the dark sky and chilling cold forces me to be present. “Standing quite alone, far in the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a richer variety than the life of cities.” This quote from Henry David Thoreau reminds me of my own reflections. I would not say that winter creates any stress or anxiety for me, but I would say that it makes what is already there more obvious and pronounced. Hot chocolate is one of the ways that I relieve that stress and anxiety. Hot chocolate evokes a sense of nostalgia and while the past is gone, I still take comfort in it. It at least lets me feel more mature now knowing I had no responsibilities then, even if I am somewhat jealous of having no cares or worries. A cup of hot chocolate is like a snow day. It gives me a brief moment of respite that I need sometimes. I do not know if many people feel the same way about the winter season and hot chocolate, but I think this yearning for comfort and the alleviation of stress is universal.
In the early history of cocoa, it was originally used as a medicinal drink and I think this still holds true in a sense. It is like an opioid in the way it relieves and provides comfort, but without the significant addiction and overdependence risks or adverse health risks.
I give hot chocolate four stars.