The history of chocolate - Deanna Pucciarelli

If you can’t imagine life without chocolate, you’re lucky you weren’t born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed as a bitter, foamy drink in Mesoamerica. So how did we get from a bitter beverage to the chocolate bars of today? Deanna Pucciarelli traces the fascinating and often cruel history of chocolate.

Lesson by Deanna Pucciarelli, animation by TED-Ed.

[eyuin]

The mesoamericans also gave us corn and vanilla.

[soulassassing]

People need to realize that it's not the chocolate that is sweet but rather the sugar that's in it. That's why when people buy unsweetened chocolate they're disgusted by how bitter it is.

[auhsojacosta]

I can imagine in the afterlife that kid is telling everyone that he died because his mother drank all his medicine

[Ivan-bbeb]

Vanilla was already added in Chocolate (Vanilla is native to Mexico too). Also honey and other various things were added to Mesoamerican Chocolate. Like Achiote, various flowers etc. Spanish nuns in Mexico added milk and sugar. In Mexico there are tons of various forms to eat and drink chocolate (Champurado, Mole, etc.). Xocolatl

[thomasslone]

i didn't know a hershey's bar tasted like mass child labor

[imperiumdivinity]

1:45
Mom: I should feed my sick kid.
*honey or anything sweet gets added*
Mom: nah let him die

[manticlove]

As a Ghanaian boy growing up in the cocoa farm, the harvesting times are memories I'll carry for life. And not to down play the struggles of others I never considered helping my parents as a child labor. Because fortunately every patent I knew back then considered school as their children's future.

As someone who experienced that life, I think the western considers every support African children give their parents as a form of child labor. Though I stand to be corrected.

[creatingartwhereeverigo]

can we appreciate how elegant the animation is

[giitanjalichiya]

"Hernan Cortes visited Montezuma."
Well, visited is one word for it.

[oddodyssey]

So if chocolate counted as currency...

I guess you could say money...


Grows on trees



I'll let myself out

[emedianetwork]

I live in colombia and when I was a kid my mom used to grind the cacao fruit directly from the cacao three and made natural chocalate

[eberardosalvador]

The horror of children slavery in chocolate production in Africa... Thank you for spreading the word. Certainly not all about chocolate is sweet. ...A thoroughly educational video indeed...Thank you for not hiding the TRUTH.

[lochuu]

Imagine go fighting and killing, then return just to receive cocoa beans

[MicahRion]

Cortez "visited." That was pretty generous summary of colonization.

[anacruz]

my family is zapotecan (indigenous to oaxaca, mx) and we have preserved a drink made from cacao and maize for thousands of years, it’s called tejate, we believe it is a drink of the gods :)

[sophiesmith]

"Man now I want chocolate..."
"Oh I'm on a diet, I guess not"

My diet: Only 1 bag of chocolate chips instead of 5

[Sintoolkicks]

If someone barged into your house, killed everyone, and stole everything, saying that he "visited" is not how I would describe that event.

[malup]

“Bitter Side of Sweet” is a great book about the child slavery to make chocolate

[nlyadelaide]

TED-ED I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS, THIS MADE 5 YEARS AGO, I STILL LOVE IT!

[ferrio]

As Belgian pastry chef, we acknowledge that Mexico is in fact the mother land of chocolate. Yes it was in Europe that modern chocolate was born but without the use gave by ancient Mesoamericans stablished in what is now Mexico, modern chocolate would have taken longer to be created because non of the other mesoamerican tribes gave the same use to cacao beans as the Mexicans, also cacao beans were brought by the Spanish conquers from Mexico. If you ask any good chef from Germany, France, Netherlands or Belgium, they’ll told you that chocolate was born thanks to Mexico, so in the name of Europeans who love chocolate, Gracias Mexico. 🇲🇽 🍫