Was Pulp Booze the First Cacao Beverage? Why I’m Doubtful
Well, after reading various newspaper stories about new information about the history of chocolate, I just couldn’t stop mulling over the idea that cacao (the tree whose fruit is the source of chocolate) was first used to make a kind of wine from the sweet pulp, something I reported on a couple of posts back.
Thanks to the internet I was able to download the original article, “Chemical and Archaeological Evidence for the Earliest Cacao Beverages” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 48, November 27, 2007, 18937-18940. I have to admit it gave me pause.
Here’s the thesis. “The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido [a site in Honduras dating to before 1000 BC] were likely produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds.”
Now what’s the evidence?
a. Testing broken bits of ancient pottery.
The scientists used bits of pottery from thirteen different containers. They chose them because their elaborate shapes or special decoration suggested that they might have been used for some kind of cacao.
They boiled them with chemicals to see if they contained the chemicals theobromine and caffeine. Eleven tested positive for theobromine and/or caffeine. Caffeine is in cacao and in other plants used for drinks. Theobromine is only found in cacao. so far, so good.
Since alcohol evaporates easily, though, there is not, and cannot be, direct evidence that the drink in the containers was alcoholic. So the authors go on to add two additional arguments.
b. Using analogies from present-day Amazonia.
Natives in parts of Amazonia use the fruity pulp of the cacao to make both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
OK that’s an interesting fact. But the fact that natives of Amazonia ferment the pulp only establishes that it is possible to do so. It does not establish that the people of Puerto Escondido actually did so.
c. Using analogies from the way chocolate was prepared when the Spaniards arrived.
The Spaniards found that cacao seeds were ground, mixed with water and spices, and poured from one wide-mouthed container to another to make a foamy drink. The containers from Puerto Escondido had narrow necks. The researchers concluded they could not have been used to pour the liquid to make it foam.
OK. But this too seems to leave a huge gap. Why would the drink have had to be foamy? Today there are lots of non-foamy drinks made from cacao seeds, including the taxcalate I reported on in an earlier post. So finally the authors throw in a third consideration.
d. Using analogies from other parts of the world.
Sugary fruits in other parts of the world were used to make booze from an early period. Hence it fits that this happened in Mesoamerica too.
Yes, it would fit. But since the evidence seems so tenuous, I am simply not persuaded.
The Burden of Proof
In short, I think the burden of proof is still with the authors to produce a more compelling argument. This is a short article of only four pages. Maybe they have tried fermenting cacao pulp to see if it could be done with the vessels found in Honduras. Maybe they have tried residue analysis on metates from the area to see whether they were or were not used to grind cacao seeds. But until I see more compelling evidence, I am not persuaded that cacao was first used by fermenting the pulp.
