Anything you serve me, as long as it has a touch of chocolate in it, will one hundred percent put a glow on my face. It has that strong effect on me being I am a sucker for it and all...

A piece of moist chocolate cake, a bar of milk chocolate, a hot cup of chocolate drink, name it and by all means I will shove it in my mouth. To have the chocolate per se is one thing, but to mix it in with some history interests me even more.

For the longest time, chocolate drinks were known to be a favorite of the upper-class men and priests, but the National Institute of Anthropology and History later discovered that chocolates could have been used for something else by the Mayas dating as far back as 2,500 years ago.

They happen to find chocolate residues on the plate fragments unveiled at the Paso del Macho site in Yucatan in 2001. Even if you were an "ancient human being," you would be sane enough not to put your drink on a plate, right. So these findings mean a whole different story.

According to the institute archaeologist named Tomas Gallareta Negron, "This is the first time it has been found on a plate used for serving food. It is unlikely that it was ground there (on the plate), because for that they probably used metates (grinding stones)."

Furthermore, John S. Henderson, a Cornell University professor of Anthropology, and a certified expert on ancient chocolate, said, "I think their inference that cacao was being used in a sauce is likely correct, though I can imagine other possibilities."

This may be beside the point, but where do you study to be a chocolate expert? I want proper classes. OK, shameless self promotion over.  Now back to the topic.

In their time, researchers concluded that the chocolate was used as a condiment or a garnish for a meal. Clearly the use of chocolate further developed over the years because nowadays there is a long list of things in which chocolate can be put to delicious use.

Several parts of ancient history have a connection with chocolate, and the Mayas are not an exemption to that. It was first discovered that raw cacao beans were ground up and poured with liquid. That simple concoction served as a drink for the Mayas. But recent studies show much more than that. Now I understand where we got our natural love for chocolates from.

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Joanna Maligaya

Staff Writer/Content Developer at Chocolate University Online

Ever since she can remember, Joanna has always considered chocolate as the ultimate food for her soul. She believes in the saying, “9 out of 10 people love chocolate, and the 10th always lies.”

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