巧克力饮品3100年前即问世
http://www.huanqiu.com 来源：环球网 进入论坛 2007-11-15 08:04
“一块在口，香浓美味”的巧克力是许多人都青睐的食品。近日，研究人员发现早在3100多年前，中美洲就出现了最早的可可饮料。这是一种类似啤酒的饮料，由包裹在可可豆外面的甜果肉发酵而成。在当时，这种象征身份和地位的饮品只在重要的庆祝活动上供应。
研究人员对洪都拉斯出土的一批约公元前1100年的陶器进行了研究，发现残存于陶器上的化学成分来自可可树。这一发现将人类食用可可的最早证据向前推进了至少500年。
研究人员表示，人类最初食用可可的历史可能还要早好几个世纪。目前，他们正试图对当地出土的历史更为悠久的陶器进行化学成分测试，以期找到答案。（沈珺）
The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America not as the sweet treat people now crave but as a celebratory beer-like beverage and status symbol, scientists said on Monday.
Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes exclusively from the cacao plant -- the source of chocolate -- in pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido, Honduras.
This pushed back by at least 500 years the earliest documented use of cacao, an important luxury commodity in Mesoamerica before European invaders arrived and now the basis of the modern chocolate industry.
Cacao (pronounced cah-COW) seeds were used to make ceremonial beverages consumed by elites of the Aztecs and other civilizations, while also being used as a form of currency.
The Spanish conquistadors who shattered the Aztec empire in the 16th century were smitten with a chocolate beverage made from cacao seeds served in the palace of the emperor. However, this was not the form in which cacao had its beginnings.
"The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido were likely produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds," the scientists wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
One of the researchers, anthropologist John Henderson of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said cacao beverages were being concocted far earlier than previously believed -- and it was a beer-like drink that started the chocolate craze.
"What we're seeing in this early village is a very early stage in which serving cacao at fancy occasions is one of the strategies that upwardly mobile families are using to establish themselves, to accumulate social prestige," Henderson said in a telephone interview.
"I think this is part of the process by which you eventually get stratified societies," Henderson said.
The cacao brew consumed at the village of perhaps 200 to 300 people may have evolved into the chocolate beverage known from later in Mesoamerican history not by design but as "an accidental byproduct of some brewing," Henderson said.
The chocolate enjoyed by later Mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya and Aztecs was made from ground cacao seeds with added seasonings, producing a spicy, frothy drink.
The Spanish brought cacao back to Europe in the 16th century. Many innovations occurred in the ensuing centuries, including the advent of solid chocolate treats.
The scientists used chemical analysis of residues extracted from pottery vessels from the Honduran site to determine that cacao had been used.
The style of the 10 small, elegant serving vessels suggests the cacao brew was served at important ceremonies perhaps to celebrate weddings and births, the scientists said.
Henderson said the first use of cacao may be earlier still by perhaps a couple of centuries. He said the scientists intend to test earlier pottery from the region for chemical proof.
