For Immediate Release Contact: Pat Kremer/Nancy O’Shea (312) 665-7100 (For Media Use Only) November 20, 2001 CHOCOLATE From the Ancient Rainforest to the Supermarket Shelf, Chicago’s Field Museum Takes Visitors on a Delicious Expedition. A unique tree in a lush tropical environment. A seed so precious it was used as money. A spicy drink and a sweet snack. A heavenly craving and a sublime pleasure. Chocolate is all this…and much more. Explore the relationship between human culture and this rainforest treasure in Chocolate, February 14 to December 31, 2002, at Chicago’s Field Museum. Chocolate will immerse you in a sweet experience, engage all your senses, and reveal facets of chocolate you may never have thought about before. You’ll explore the plant, the products, the history, and the culture of chocolate through the lenses of botany and ecology, anthropology and economics, conservation and popular culture. And if all that sets your mouth to watering, we’ll send you off with a chocolate treat to satisfy your cravings. Liquid gold Bon bons, hot fudge, frozen chocolate bars. Most of us know chocolate today primarily as a candy or a sweet dessert. But it wasn’t always so. The ancient Maya of Central America knew it as a frothy, spicy drink, made from the seeds of the cacao tree and used in royal and religious ceremonies. How did humans first come to taste these bitter seeds, found deep in the pulp of a large, rough pod the size of a football? No one recorded the event. But, says, Jonathan Haas, MacArthur curator of North American anthropology, it was an intensely human thing to do. “Human beings are tinkerers,” Haas says. “We like to try things. And when most of your diet comes from corn, you’re going to be looking for variety.” So the Maya let the seeds ferment, dried them in the sun, roasted them, crushed them, added water and spices…and drank! This chocolate drink at first was consumed by rich and poor. But because cacao grows only in the rainforest, it was coveted by other cultures – in particular, the Aztec. It soon became a valuable article of trade; the seeds served as a form of money, and the drink became a luxury for the elite, served in lavishly decorated vessels. When the first Europeans reached the Aztec capital, instead of gold they found treasure troves of cacao seeds. Continue