Is Chocolate Gay?
Other than God & sex, chocolate is the most powerful force on Earth. Its connections to the other 2 are indisputable:
- Theobroma cacao named by Linneaus is Greek for God-food;
- Cacáo earns its reputation as notoriously promiscuous by rampant cross-breeding.
But what about gay? To paraphrase Curt Cobain: it could be. Certain homogenous cacáo populations are self-compatible (capable of fertilizing by its own pollen / reproducing without cross-breeding).
Then again, we all could be.
Mayan iconography & cosmology associated cacáo with the feminine, but today both men & women enjoy chocolate along a diverse continuum (Milk, Dark, Semi-Sweet, et. al.) So it might be better characterized as bi- or poly-.
In a deeply personal & intensely emotional open letter to subscribers, a contributing editor of the C-spot confides that he had been harboring a secret life. After years of therapy & counseling, he comes out about how chocolate, a specific type of chocolate, helped him come to terms with his orientation & at the same time reciprocates profoundly about chocolate’s own proclivities. In a nib, it’s about being inclusive.
Read his touching & heartfelt account.
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Last month we asked, is Criollo all it’s cracked up to be? This month we find out if somewhere high in the mountains of Belize long lost relics of the most ancient of Criollos are being revived. Could be the stuff chocolatarians would sell their babies to the devil for.
Rumor has it that Maya Mountain Cacao is not-so-secretly cultivating this varietal, using an ingenious, time-honored method to deliver the fruits of this treasure to the chocolate underworld: mules with rucksacks. See our review. To support the good work in sustaining this mountain preserve, consider a donation. |
Next Newsletter:
Real Fake Chocolate
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Chocolate Awards Part II
Chocolate shows continue to sprout up faster than mushrooms after a rainfall. Last month we brought you news of a “raw” bar winning one such contest.
This month we visit a more venerable awards ceremony whose top prize went to a completely different barsmith, different in style & direction, a throwback to classical tendencies.
Interestingly, neither entered the other’s competition. (Professional courtesy? Hmm).
Somebody had to break the tie & who better than the C-spot?
And the winner is…
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Chocolate Meds
Dr. Jeffrey William Hurst is a recognized biochemist & an authority on cacáo compounds. Among his various research assignments, he has published in peer-review journals his chemical analysis of cacáo traces found in Mayan & other Mesoamerican drinking vessels dating back thousands of years, including the oldest known residues in Xoconochco (present day Mexico circa 1,900BCE).
He also has plotted oxidation changes in chocolate’s many formats (seed, bar, powder, etc). For instance, as the lead investigator in a study of antioxidant activity, Hurst found that cocoa oxidants remain quite stable, retaining very high levels of flavan-3-ol content, including samples taken on 80 year-old cocoa powder & 116 year-old cocoa nuts!
We at the C-spot are thankful to Dr. Hurst, who has always & generously fielded our many inquiries. We consider him an invaluable source.
So when the opportunity arose to review his latest book — Chocolate as Medicine: A Quest Over the Centuries, co-authored with Dr. Philip Wilson — we naturally rolled up our sleeves to check what kind of vein-popping remedies course thru it. But because of our close ties to him, we felt obliged to recuse ourselves. Instead we adapted the review of naturopathic physician Jacob Schor, originally published in the February 2013 issue of Natural Medicine Journal.
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