Page:The Boston cooking-school cook book.djvu/65

Rh used, as is always the case with black coffee. Serve in after-dinner coffee cups, with or without cut sugar.

Coffee retards gastric digestion; but where the stomach has been overtaxed by a hearty meal, café noir may prove beneficial, so great are its stimulating effects.

The preparations on the market made from the kola-nut have much the same effect upon the system as coffee and chocolate, inasmuch as they contain caffeine and theobromine; they are also valuable for their diastase and a milk-digesting ferment.

The cacao-tree (Theobroma cacao) is native to Mexico. Although successfully cultivated between the twentieth parallels of latitude, its industry is chiefly confined to Mexico, South America, and the West Indies. Cocoa and chocolate are both prepared from seeds of the cocoa bean. The bean pod is from seven to ten inches long, and three to four and one-half inches in diameter. Each pod contains from twenty to forty seeds, embedded in mucilaginous material. Cocoa beans are dried previous to importation. Like coffee, they need roasting to develop flavor. After roasting, outer covering of bean is removed; this covering makes what is known as cocoa shells, which have little nutritive value. The beans are broken and sold as cocoa nibs.

The various preparations of cocoa on the market are made from the ground cocoa nibs, from which, by means of hydraulic pressure, a large amount of fat is expressed, leaving a solid cake. This in turn is pulverized and mixed with sugar, and frequently a small amount of corn-starch or arrowroot. To some preparations cinnamon or vanilla is added. Broma contains both arrowroot and cinnamon.

Chocolate is made from cocoa nibs, but contains a much larger proportion of fat than cocoa preparations. Bitter, sweet, or flavored chocolate is always sold in cakes.