[Sca-cooks] North American Chocolate Trade

[Sam Wallace]

I thought this might be of interest to the group:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/71308/title/Pueblo_traded_for_chocolate_big-time

"Chocolate may have provided sweet impetus for extensive trade between
ancient northern and southern societies in the Americas. Pueblo people
living in what’s now the U.S. Southwest drank a cacao-based beverage
that was imported from Mesoamerican cultures in southern Mexico or
Central America, a new chemical analysis of Pueblo vessels finds."

The article continues from there. A quick Google search shows several
repeats of the the same basic information. the article does not say
what other ingredients were detected along with the cacao, though. I
was unable to find contact information for the person who led the
research effort, Dorothy Washburn on the University of Pennsylvania
web site, though there are a lot of hits when donig a local search for
her name. It would be very interesting to find out what additives were
present in the chocolate (maize, spice, sweetener).

Guillaume