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Cindy's World Trip Blog

September 18, Month 4

Chocolate In Costa Rica

Did you know that a chocolate bean is actually deep purple? Neither did I until we visited a farm where an indigenous woman taught us about the cocoa fruit and showed us how they used it to make chocolate.

The instructions to get there were a bit vague. They don't seem to have road names here so they have no addresses. Off we went anyway, dodging pot holes until we saw a homemade sign in what seemed to be a random place. We stopped and approached cautiously because we weren't sure it was the right place. We walked down a little hill to what looked like was a barn and felt like we were trespassing on someone's property. We were soon greeted by the adult English-speaking daughter who told us that yes, we were in the right place and gave us the tour.

As she started, not knowing what to expect, I wondered if my kids would enjoy the tour. She showed us a red flower which she popped open to reveal that the flower was more of a cone shaped pod with little seeds inside. Taking out one of the seeds and squashing it between her fingers she showed us that it made a bright pinkish-red color . "It is used for make-up, paints, or in a paste for cooking." She wiped it on her lips and invited the girls to try it. Wide-eyed they looked at us - we nodded our approval and the giggles began as they spread the pink stuff on their lips. For Ellie it was more just in the general area of her lips... more like she had put on lipstick in the dark while going on a roller-coaster. At that point, with goofy pink roller-coaster lips I knew the girls were drawn into the demonstration, hook line, and sinker.

Next we began the chocolate demonstration. I didn't realize that chocolate has been consumed in liquid form in this area since hundreds of years before the time of Christ. It held a regular place in the indigenous people's diet as a drink, for purification rituals after childbirth, and it was used medicinally.

The woman took us over to the cacao tree and showed us what the pod looks like when the beans are ready to harvest. She opened the pod and showed us the slimy-white coated seeds inside. Handing us one of the seeds she told us to suck on it and indicated that the slimy outside was sweet, but the inside is where the bitter bean was. I tasted the bean just as she said the outside was a little sweet and the inside purple seed was very bitter. Luckily she had a coconut shell for us to spit it out. The woman went through the process of how the beans are processed to a point that they can be consumed: drying them in the sun while tuning them every few hours was the first step.

To make a drying dish for the beans she lit a small fire and put a large banana leaf over the flame. This made the leaf pliable like plastic instead of brittle. After the beans were dry, they were roasted over the fire. The insides were crushed after being separated from the outsides, then cooked over the fire to separate the cocoa butter.

Apparently, this was not necessarily an easy process. The indigenous people believed that the chocolate had it's own spirit and it would only separate properly if it's spirit was in harmony with your spirit. (So next time that cooking dinner doesn't go well, I will know that my dinner's spirit wasn't in harmony with mine). The cocoa solids are cooled and used in this form. Whew! Sounds like a lot of work to me.

The rest of the demonstration consisted of learning about other plants that were useful that they commonly used. She then let us try 11 different flavors of chocolates they made: milk, cinnamon, mint, nutmeg, coconut, black pepper (yes black pepper-,it was actually kind of good), sweet, regular, vanilla, ginger, and coffee (I didn't try that one). It wasn't creamy, but it was good and I am sure a lot more healthy than what I normally get.

There is chocolate sold in town made by another local person. A long roll of chocolate is wrapped in waxed paper then wrapped in tissue paper. This chocolate is also not super creamy, but it is sooo good. What impresses me about the chocolate is it's ingredients. They read: cocoa, cane sugar, and a flavor - like mint if they have added one.

When we got home from our chocolate field trip, we studied up a little on the history of chocolate and learned a little about how it got into the present form we are used to eating.