Page:Cacao by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/13

Rh they add aromatic spices and even honey from bees, and some rose water, but the cacao that is not good has much sediment and water and does not make any foam but only froth."

A similar account of the preparation of the cacao in ancient Mexico is given by Joyce as follows: "The beans were first roasted in pans of pottery and then ground on stones with a little water. The resultant paste was put into calabash cups, more water added, and occasionally a little spice."

Or, in another manner: "The nut was pounded and boiled in water with a little maize flour, the oil was skimmed off and the mixture strained and poured into another vessel, so as to produce a froth. Sometimes honey and vanilla were added, and it was generally taken after food." Such a dish of cacao and maize flour constitutes many a Mexican breakfast today. The Chorotegas colored the drink red with Anatto seed. Among the Nicaraguans such a drink, prepared with cold water, sugar and spice, is known as "tiste." It is beaten to a froth with a swizzle stick held vertically between the palms of the hands and rapidly rotated with a backward and forward motion. The swizzle stick functions as a primitive and somewhat inefficient egg-beater. It is often cut from a natural branch, forked or with a whorl of small twigs as spokes. It is even now a famous household utensil in the Caribbean region, and is employed in the mixing of cooling drinks. Since its adoption by the white population, however, a devotion to the swizzle stick no longer necessarily implies an addiction to foaming chocolate. The Mexican term, "chocolatl," from which our word "chocolate" is derived, actually means a foaming drink, "choco" = "foam," "atl" = "water"