We would like to eat it every day, and when it’s not in our pantry we do nothing but think about it. We are enchanted by the ice cream showcases that showcase it. Dark black, lighter with milk, dark, according to taste. We’re talking about chocolate, of course! But have you ever wondered how this delicacy that we can’t live without is born? Probably taken by its taste you will never have asked yourself too many questions, but today we take away some curiosities.

Where does chocolate come from? The story begins in Latin America: here some beans have become food, cure, pleasure, gift, medicine. Join us on a journey through this fascinating story!

The history of chocolate begins 4,000 years ago in Mexico. This is where the first cocoa plants were found. The Olmec, one of the first civilizations of Latin America, was the first to transform the cocoa plant into chocolate, to use the drink as a medicine. Centuries later, the Maya proclaimed chocolate “drink of the gods”. It is said that, in the fifteenth century, however, the Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency. No one knows for sure when chocolate reached Europe. Legend has it that the explorer Hernán Cortés brought chocolate to his homeland starting in 1528. Cortés probably discovered chocolate during an expedition to the Americas. In search of gold and riches, however, he found a cup of cocoa that was offered to him by the Aztec emperor. When Cortés returned home, he introduced cocoa beans to the Spanish. Though still served as a drink, Spanish chocolate was mixed with sugar and honey to mellow the bitter taste. Chocolate quickly became popular with the wealthy.

But the Spaniards kept the chocolate all to themselves for quite some time! The rest of Europe was able to enjoy its goodness only after a century. In 1615 the French king Louis XIII married Anne of Austria, daughter of the Spanish king Philip III. To celebrate the union, he brought samples of the chocolate to the royal courts of France. After France, chocolate soon appeared in Britain in special “chocolate cases”.

The revolution that chocolate has been waiting for

Chocolate remained immensely popular among the European aristocracy. Royalty and the upper classes consumed this delicacy mostly for the health benefits. However, the chocolate was still made by hand, a slow and laborious process. But with the industrial revolution just around the corner, things were about to change. In 1828, the invention of the press revolutionized chocolate making. This innovative device could help cocoa butter escape from roasted cocoa beans, producing a fine cocoa powder. The powder was then mixed with liquids and poured into a mold, where solidified it became an edible bar. And just like that, the modern age of chocolate was born.

It was a short step from chocolate to ice cream

There are only a few days of summer left now, so we have to enjoy the last few mouthfuls of fresh ice cream to the fullest. But which flavor to choose? Chocolate, of course! According to the International Ice Cream Association, 30% of people prefer chocolate ice cream. But what is the first flavor that ice cream has encountered?

Some of the first frozen desserts were composed of shaved ice with flavored sugar syrups, a sort of modern granita. In the Middle East, they were known as sharbati or Serbian – the origin of the words sherbet and sherbet.

Because of this precedent, some of the oldest ice cream flavors were beverages, such as coffee and tea. That’s why chocolate ice cream was invented long before vanilla. The first frozen chocolate recipe was published in Naples in 1692 in the book The Modern Steward. Chocolate was a popular hot beverage in 17th-century Europe and was commonly mixed with spices such as cinnamon, chili peppers, aniseed, almonds, or musks (glandular extracts from musk deer). Today’s “Mexican chocolate” is actually a descendant of how chocolate was served at the Spanish court, not how it was conceived by the ancient peoples of Mexico.

Chocolate has without a shadow of a doubt revolutionized the world of ice cream which, until before meeting the food of the gods, had known only the taste of vanilla. Chocolate-flavored ice cream represents an important revolution precisely because of its complex processing and the delicate combinations that can distinguish it. As we have learned from its history, chocolate has always been considered a precious commodity, a real wealth that was forbidden to belittle! If the Mayans treasured it and the Spanish royals hid it greedily, today we certainly cannot use it as any other “flavor”.

That of chocolate ice cream therefore represents a real art, which not everyone possesses. As the great master chocolatiers teach us, it must be handled with care, know how to work it wisely and combine it cleverly. The taste of chocolate always knows how to touch the deepest strings of the soul, so we need to find the right way to enhance it together with other combinations that could prove to be successful.

Chocolate today: a real work of art to be handled with care

Today chocolate is a real work of art that few know how to handle. There are great gelato masters who have dedicated courses and studies only to this ingredient because its composition needs special care to become tasty chocolate. Distinguishing a low quality chocolate ice cream from one that takes us to heaven is not difficult, just activate the taste buds. An example of mastery in this field is undoubtedly Paolo Brunelli, the ice cream maker who according to Gambero Rosso produces the best chocolate ice cream in the world. Brunelli has always devoted great attention to experimentation and research of raw materials, betting everything on the short supply chain. Without ever putting aside the real human side, Paolo cares about people knowing exactly what they are eating. Paolo Brunelli is for this reason synonymous with quality.

But chocolate has also become the protagonist of many events, including the courses organized by Paolo Brunelli with Orion. An example is Sigep, the leading trade fair in the ice cream, pastry and artisanal sector. During the chocolate fair, panels such as “The Star of Chocolate” are dedicated, where the best manufacturing companies in Italy meet, bringing innovation to the chocolate processing sector, still considered the food of the gods today. Another event in which chocolate is the undisputed protagonist is the Eurochocolate of Perugia. During this real festival dedicated to the delicacy we love most, it is possible to taste chocolate in all its nuances (it is possible to try more than 10 types of chocolate), in different forms and accompanied by different combinations that you never expect.