Thank the ancient Olmecs for chocolate

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/02/2006 (7192 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VERACRUZ, Mexico — Mexicans eat it with chicken, les francais spread it with hazelnuts on bread, the Swiss drink it for breakfast, Americans scent candles with it. Everybody loves chocolate.

We enjoy chocolate hearts at Valentine’s Day, chocolate eggs at Easter and brandy chocolates at Christmas. We enjoy chocolate just about anytime. Hot chocolate, so thick that a spoon stands straight up in the cup, is a New Year’s Eve tradition in Spain.

Chocolate has been touted as an aphrodisiac, an energy booster, a mood changer and as an antioxidant and immune system enhancer.

Recent research suggests that people who regularly eat chocolate live a little longer. North Americans spend an estimated $20 billion US on chocolate annually. A participant in the Survivor Africa television show paid the equivalent of $50 US for a cup of chocolate syrup.

To whom do we owe this pleasure of the palate?

The Olmecs.

“Who?” you ask.

The Olmecs were the mother culture of Meso-America and the earliest complex society in the Americas.

They preceded both Mayans and Aztecs, and left a calendar, along with a substantial legacy in art, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, politics, religion and economics.

Olmecs have received little credit for their contribution to our civilization, culture and comfort, mainly because little was known about them — until recently.

During the last few decades, anthropologists have been busy unearthing various Olmec artifacts, including two-metre-high heads (some weighing as much as 20 tonnes) — diaries in stone. The stone heads and other sculptures are talking, or at least slowly telling a story, the story of the Olmec people.

The Olmecs lived on the sweeping alluvial plain in the present-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco — an area covering 18,000 sq. km, bounded by the Gulf of Mexico to the north, sierras to the south, the high plateau to the west and the Yucutan to the east.

Their empire flourished from about 1500 BC to AD 200, right after the fall of the Shang dynasty in China (one specialist speculates that ancient Chinese mariners may have made their way to this region two millennia before Cortes landed in 1519).

Mainly hunters and fishermen and farmers, the Olmecs cultivated such crops as maize, cotton, tobacco, chile peppers, squash and cacao.

They were the first people known to cultivate cacao trees, which they called kakawa — the beans were fermented, dried and roasted to make a chocolate drink.

The fleshy white seeds became so important that the Aztecs (AD 900 to 1400) used them as currency and drank cacao water at religious ceremonies.

Descendants of the Olmec still live in and around Veracruz, although they have blended with other cultures through time. The Olmec sculptures in Xalapa (pronounced ha-la-pa), the state capital (about 100 km northwest of Veracruz) are breathtaking.

And what about the land of the Olmecs today? It’s hot and humid year-round but the best weather is January through March.

Carnaval, which happens in February, the week before Ash Wednesday, is a fiesta of great joy and colour. Veracruz (pop. 500,000), a potpourri of old and new, is Mexico’s largest and liveliest seaport.

The Holiday Inn downtown is a remodeled Spanish colonial convent, but right next door you can get your film developed in an hour and/or write a quick note home for $1 US at an Internet Cafe.

On Constitution Plaza, mothers sit on white wrought-iron benches and chat while watching their children play in the garden.

The Veracruzanos are friendly people and make a lot of joy in their daily lives. As one tour guide said, “I have a big heart. It’s like a second-class bus. There is always room for one more.”

Snare an outdoor table early evening at the historical Imperial Hotel for dinner or a drink and much of the Mexican mundo passes before you.

A charming and entrepreneurial nurse may come by and offer to take your blood pressure (by donation), while youngsters and oldsters amble around hawking a variety of goods — from pistachios and peanuts to jewelry and wooden models of ships sailed by Colombus to the New World. Meanwhile, a tightrope walker ties up his rope between a tree and a pole and entertains with his balancing act right in front.

An orchestra is playing and people are dancing under the stars in the balmy evening air. Our tour guide, who said with serious certainty that he was an Olmec, swept me out on to the plaza and waltzed me in circles around the other dancers.

Outside the city, action-packed options include whitewater rafting, kayaking, spelunking, hang-gliding, mountain biking, fishing and scuba diving.

There are hot springs and beaches (city beaches are too polluted for swimming) for relaxing.

Where to eat? Veracruz offers a cosmopolitan collection of cuisines with restaurants sporting such monikers as La Fiesta, the Dawson Saloon, Dim Sum King, Sorbetto Cafe, Kabuki, La Casa del Fondue, Zoo Disco and the Video Cafe.

And, as you dive into that chocolate ice cream for dessert, remember to murmur a thank you to the ancient Olmecs.

–CanWest News Service

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