Gayle's Blog ~ Our Travels Across the U.S.: South Bend Chocolate Company, South Bend, Indiana

Of course I would find a company that gives tours in a chocolate factory and also gives away free samples during the tour. And that's where the South Bend Chocolate Company comes in. The company was founded in 1991 by Mark Tarner. The company got its start making chocolates under a license from the University of Notre Dame. It's first three products were the Domer, the Rockne, and Nuts for ND. In their store today, there is a whole display dedicated to Notre Dame with their logo. The produce over 500 different chocolates and sweets and ship all over the country.

It is also home to one of the largest collections of chocolate memorabilia in the world, including a 1,300 year-old Mayan chocolate pot among the hundreds of tins, containers and chocolate boxes of all shapes and sizes. The collection extensively features American chocolate companies.

The discovery of chocolate is shrouded in mystery and myth. The distant drums celebrating its discovery have been silenced by time and memory. The truth will never be fully known. Who first discovered chocolate? Who first roasted and ground cacao beans to powder? Our earliest knowledge of chocolate comes from the Olmecs, perhaps the oldest Mesoamerican culture. The Olmecs lived around present day Veracruz, along the Gulf of Mexico from 1500 BC to 200 BC.

Were the Olmecs the first people to use chocolate? It's doubtful. Hunter-gatherers in Mesoamerica gradually became established between 7000 BC and 2000 BC. These people, in all likelihood, were the first to begin the cultivation of cacao trees. However, the Olmecs left no word of their discovery.

Complicating the historical record is the fact that very little is really known about ancient Mesoamerica. The Spanish conquistadors and priests destroyed hundreds of hieroglyphic books and religious objects leaving most of their history recorded only in rock carvings -- these hieroglyphics, most of which are undeciphered, give archeologists little to go on.

Our understanding of the origin of chocolate is enriched by the Mayan myth surrounding its cultivation. But most likely, cacao pods were found in the forest by early hunter-gatherers who could hardly ignore the gaudy cacao tree with its oval shaped gems, orange or purpose pods hanging temptingly from its trunk and branches. Perhaps then this early American plucked a green pod from a tree, tasted the sweet nectar that surrounds the cacao beans and the pulp. He may have discarded the beans, leaving the beans to dry out in the sun or rot. Over time these forest people ate the beans too and eventually dried, roasted and ground the beans to be mixed with water, corn and other tropical plants.

From random harvesting around their tropical homes to cultivation in small groves and bringing their "cash" crop to the village market, cacao served early hunter-gatherers and the Mayas well both as a food and even as a form of currency.

Today, few people question where chocolate came from and no one would accept cacao beans for money. But chocolate is an ever more important part of the global economy and diet. So, a big thank you to whoever discovered chocolate.

1,000 BC ~~ This was the first use of the word cacao. Kakawa (cacao) was used in the vocabulary of the ancient Olmecs. The Olmecs influenced other later cultures like the Mayas and Aztecs. Modern archeological and linguistic evidence seem to point to the Olmecs as the first civilization to domesticate cacao.

750 AD ~~ This picture is the earliest picture of chocolate being prepared as a beverage. Painted on the famous Princeton Vase, a Mayan woman is depicted preparing a beverage for God L. She carefully pours liquid chocolate from one container to another on the floor. This process created foam, something the Mayans and later the Aztecs enjoyed to top off their chocolate drinks.

1051 AD ~~ Chocolate shown as a wedding gift. Chocolate was also present at Mesoamerican weddings similar to champagne's widespread use in modern western weddings.

1200 AD ~~ The Mayas demand for the cacao beans as tribute in a war won against the Chimimeken tribe. Records from this period detail deliveries of cacao beans to the Maya. This war helped the Mayans secure control of Mexico.

1502 ~~ Columbus "discovers" chocolate on this fourth voyage to the New World. Off the coast of Guanaja (Honduras), Columbus captured a Mayan trading canoe loaded with goods. Among the corn and manioc, he found "almonds," that is, cacao beans. Columbus died four years later without ever knowing what he had discovered. He never tasted chocolate and would have undoubtedly found the drink the Mayans made from it distasteful. Had he discovered that the Mayans used cacao beans as "currency," he may have found them more palatable.

1513 ~~ Hernando de Oveido y Valdez, a member of Pedraries Avila's American expedition, reported buying a slave for 100 cacao beans.

1519 ~~ Hernando Cortez, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, visited Montezuma at his palace and observed the Aztec ruler drinking chocolate as a drink from golden cups. Realizing chocolate's economic potential, the Spanish developed exclusive trade between their New World colonies and Spain. Chocolate remained a Spanish secret for the next almost ninety years.

1545 ~~ Chocolate was used as currency by Aztecs. First recorded exchange rate: a rabbit = 100 cacao beans; one turkey egg = 3 cacao beans; an avocado = 3 cacao beans; a tomato = 1 cacao bean.

1585 ~~ The first official shipment of cacao is made from Veracruz to Seville. Chocolate may have arrived in Europe earlier. Some credit Herman Cortes with the first shipment. However, this is no historical proof of this.

The Aztecs and other Central American indians used the cacao beans as money. It was the product's relative scarcity which raised it to the rank of currency, similar to the way gold silver were once used. For example, in the late 1400s and early 1500s, four beans would buy a pumpkin and a rabbit was worth ten.

1606 ~~ Antonio Carletti, an Italian traveler, discovers chocolate use in Spain and decided to take it back to his native Italy. The Spanish had turned chocolate into a profitable industry, and the Crown wanted to guard its monopoly. The secret of chocolate was out. Within the next few decades, chocolate use became more widespread throughout Europe.

1609 ~~ The first book totally devoted to chocolate is written by a Spaniard named Cardenas. Libro En El Cual Se Trata Del Chocolate was published in Mexico. Today, Cardenas would be shocked at the number of books about chocolate.

1615 ~~ The Spanish princess of Austria marries French King Louis XIII, bringing her love for chocolate to Paris. Her chocolate habit is accepted by the French Court and starts spreading to other royal courts throughout Europe.

1631 ~~ Another Spaniard named Colmenero writes the book The Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate. His book became the standard text and was translated into several languages.

1635 ~~ A New Survey of the West Indies is published. Thomas Gage, a Dominican priest, writes a best-selling travelogue in which he mentions a drink called "Chocolate." This highly readable reference was the first mention of chocolate in the English language.

1657 ~~ A chocolate house opens in England. In an advertisement published in the Public Advertiser an enterprising Frenchman announced his grand opening: "In Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time; and also unmade, at reasonable rates." Chocolate houses would open across Europe and were patronized by the upper classes.

1660 ~~ The British Parliament passed a duty on chocolate. Henceforth, every gallon of chocolate that was manufactured was taxed. This tax undoubtedly helped keep the cost of chocolate above what the average could afford. Charles II.

1662 ~~ Catholic Pope Pius V declares that the consumption of chocolate does not break fasting. "Liquidium non frangitjejunum" In other words, "Liquids (chocolate) do not break the fast."

1690 ~~ The British Parliament passed a law requiring a license to sell chocolate.

1697 ~~ The Mayor of Zurich, Switzerland tastes chocolate on a trip to Brussels. He returns home with stories of this fabulous drink called chocolate.

1704 ~~ Frederick I of Prussia imposes a tax on chocolate as part of a policy of taxing foreign produce. A permit could be purchased from the government for two talers.

1711 ~~ Emperor Charles VI moves this court from Spain to Austria. Vienna would never be the same; royal Spanish chocolate traditions would prove irresistible to the Austrians.

1752 ~~ Obadiah Brown, a New England entrepreneur from Providence, made four hundreds pounds of chocolate for his friends and associates in Newport.

1765 ~~ March 12, 1765, chocolate is successfully produced for the first time in the United States (more correctly, the 13 colonies). An Irish immigrant, John Hannon, imported cacao beans from the West Indies to Massachusetts, and with the financial assistance of Dr. James Baker, the countries first successful chocolate factory was founded. Baker's chocolate is still available in stores today. The late 1700s were not only a political turning point for the U.S., but a gastronomic one as well.

1780 ~~ The first machine-made chocolate was made in Barcelona.

1797 ~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loved chocolate. On a trip to Switzerland, he included chocolate and a chocolate pot in his luggage. The Swiss chocolate industry evidently failed to impress Goethe.

1810 ~~ Venezuela produces half of the world's supply of cocoa with the Spanish consuming roughly one-third the total.

1824 ~~ Cadbury is founded by John Cadbury. He opened a coffee and tea business in Birmingham, England. Chocolate was by no means his primary business in the early days.

1828 ~~ Conrad J. van Houten invented a way to de-fat chocolate. Van Houton patented a hydraulic press to literally squeeze cocoa butter out of roasted cacao beans. This process produced a dry "cake" that could be ground into powder known as cocoa. And, as everyone knows, cocoa powder made making chocolate drinks easier and more appetizing. What most to not realize is that van Houten's process layered the groundwork for future chocolate products, such as modern eating chocolate.

1832 ~~ The Sacher Torte first baked by Franz Sacher as an apprentice cook for Prince Clemens von Metternich. The Sacher Torte is still available today from Hotel Sacher in Vienna, Austria.

1849 ~~ Joseph Fry invents the world's first eating chocolate.

After Spain defeated Montezhuma, ruler of the Aztecs, the Spanish realized cacao's value and began farming cacao -- growing money. Sounds like ancient history, huh? Well, don't think using cacao as money is that old of a practice. In his book, "The States of Central America," Ephraim Squier observed that cacao was still used as currency in the markets of all the principal towns of Central America. This was 1858 -- just three years before the Civil War began.

1867 ~~ Henri Nestle invents powdered milk.

1875 ~~ Daniel Peter, a Swiss chocolate maker, developed milk chocolate by mixing powdered milk with sugar, chocolate liquer, and cocoa butter.

1879 ~~ Rudolphe Lindt discovers "conching," a technique of blending chocolate that improved the quality of eating chocolate. Chocolate now melts on the tongue.

1907 ~~ Hersey's Kisses first produced. Today between 20-25 million per day are made.

1908 ~~ Toblerone bars were first introduced. Today these bars sell in over 100 countries. Theodor Tobler and Emil Baumann developed this unique triangular shaped Swiss bar.

1925 ~~ New York Cocoa Exchange was established. Buyers and sellers needed a central place to do business. Today this Exchange has a new name, the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange, and has grown into the world's leading futures marketplace.

1931 ~~ Chocolate Chip Cookies were first introduced, and the world has never been the same. Ruth Wakefield, who is certainly more famous than Amos, chopped up a chocolate bar and mixed the pieces into her cookie dough at the Toll House Restaurant in Whitman, Mass. Nestle would eventually buy the rights to her recipe, hence the name Toll House cookies.

1939 ~~ Chocolate chips are introduced into the mass market by Nestle. Today Nestle produces about 250 million a day.

1940 ~~ Forrest Mars introduces M&M's to the world. Today it is the world's number one confection. The Spanish Civil War gave Mr. Mars the original idea for this "melt in your mouth, not in your hand" chocolate sensation. While traveling in Spain he noticed soldiers eating chocolate lentils coated in a sugar candy. He had long desired to produced a chocolate candy that would not melt and then profit would follow.

1947 ~~ U.S. and British pilots scattered chocolate bars and other candies from their planes to the children who watched them land, earning the nickname "chocolate bombers."

1953 ~~ As East Germans try to protest the Soviet occupation of East Germany in Berlin, the Chocolate Affair occurs in Spandau Prison in West Berlin. A guard found two pieces of chocolate in former Nazi Constantin von Neurath's pocket during a routine search. An allied investigation followed with ten witnesses called to testify. Such luxuries were denied these prisoners and the prison directors wanted to discover who had smuggled the chocolate.

1964 ~~ Botanist Jose Cuatrecasas revises the genus "Theobroma." The updated genus now contains 22 species. Only two matter to chocolate lovers -- "T. cacao" and "T. bicolor." In fact, only "T. cacao" is widely consumed. "T. bicolor" use is confined to southern Mexico to Bolivia and Brazil as more of a garden crop. Mexicans make a drink called "pataxte" from it.

1980 ~~ Chocolate espionage. An apprentice of Suchard-Tobler, a Swiss multinational chocolate company, tried unsuccessfully to sell well-guarded chocolate formulas to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

1990 ~~ Chocolate war breaks out between Hershey and M&M/Mars. The Pentagon approached Hershey about making chocolate bars for the Gulf War that could withstand temperatures up to 140 degrees. In the bidding process, however, Hershey lost to M&M/Mars. Their heated battles are likely to continue.

1991 ~~ Historical Footnote: Small chocolate maker establishes the South Bend Chocolate Company and makes it his passion to make the world a sweeter place.

Not to be outdone by President Clinton, a chocolate scandal erupted when the Princeton Dental Resource Center announced that chocolate actually prevented tooth decay. The Center asked dentists nationwide to pass this information on to their patients. Sound too good to be true? The attorney general in New York thought so and sued the Center. What the Princeton dentists failed to reveal was that their primary financing came from the chocolate industry.

1997 ~~ The European Parliament erupted in angry recriminations over chocolate. The issue is the Two Chocolates Policy adopted by the European Union in 1973. Until 1973 the Union allowed chocolate to be called chocolate only if it contained 100% cocoa butter. However, much to the distaste of the purists, Britain, Ireland and Denmark obtained special exemptions to this rule when they joined. These countries could mix in less expensive vegetable fats and still call it chocolate. In the United States, a model of Yankee ingenuity and common sense, such chocolate is available -- we simply label it as bad.

2001 ~~ Swiss chocolate goes postal. The Swiss post introduces the first chocolate stamp. This scratch-n-sniff stamp resembles a square of chocolate. The stamp becomes a huge success with both chocolate lovers and stamp collectors worldwide.

2001 ~~ The Chocolate Road Show opens on July 15 at the Indiana State Fair. The road show will spread the joy of chocolate throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States.

I Love Lucy

Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance struggle to keep up with a chocolate conveyer belt in a candy factory, in a 1952 episode of "I Love Lucy". Considered one of the series' most iconic moments.

Where does chocolate come from? The cacao (pronounced ka-cow) tree grows in the tropics worldwide, although the cacao tree originated in Central and South America. The tree thrives in a warm, very humid environment and needs plenty of shade.

Chocolate comes from pods grown on the cacao trees.
Farmers harvest the pods twice a year by knocking them down with sticks.

The cacao tree's scientific name is Theobroma Cacao, which is Latin for "food of the gods." The Mayans and Aztecs believed chocolate possessed divine properties. According to the Aztec legend, Quetzalcoatal, an ancient god of rain and water, stole the cacao tree from this brother gods and planted it on earth. He then taught Aztec women how to make chocolate.

Quetzalcoatal's recipe would not have made him a god by today's standards or tastes. The Aztecs consumed chocolate as a cold drink, probably called chocolatl, which means "bitter water" from xocal, meaning "bitter" and atl, meaning water. Cacao beans were roasted and ground, then mixed with water, corn, and chilies. Bitter water indeed! The Aztecs seemed to like it. Chocolatl was the favored drink of the Aztec royalty and was a very valuable commodity.

Cacao pod

Open pods show about 42 beans covered by a white coating. Depending on variety, pods can be bright yellow to orange, and various shades of green to red.

Cacao trees grow in a band spreading 20 degrees
north and south of the Equator

A cacao tree reaches maturity in about eight years, at which point it begins to bear between 20 to 30 cacao pods. The pods are then cut from the tree and the beans removed and collected.

Immature pod

Ripe cacao pods

The next stage is fermentation. This is one of the most delicate stages in the processing of cacao. Temperature, timing, and overall handling of the bean are critical to the final flavor of the resulting chocolate. The cacao beans and white pulp are next fermented together for several days. This process gives chocolate its special flavor because the bean, when fermented properly, loses much of its bitterness and gains the aroma we associate with fine chocolate.

After fermenting, the beans contain a high moisture content and are sun-dried. After spending 3-5 days drying on special racks, the cacao beans are graded and packed in burlap bags for shipment to a processing factory.

Upon arriving at a chocolate processing plant, the beans are cleaned, roasted, ground and processed into chocolate and other products.

Meso American Codex

This is a reproduction of a 16th century codex showing a native Mexican woman pouring chocolate from one vessel to another. This method made their favorite drink frothy.

This Mayan chocolate pot is approximately 1300 years old from the Late Classic Period (600 to 800 AD). Outstanding piece of Mayan ceramic ware that depicts the glyph for the Mayan word chocolate in the rim text. This glyph looks like a fish and faces the front of the display.

Cacao tree in an early 18th century engraving from a travel book by the Dominican priest Jean-Baptiste Labat. From the book The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe.

Having Fun ....

Before we went into the factory section where they made the chocolate confections, we had to don our masks. I was not able to take any pictures in there, so I continued with the pictures once we left the main section. We got a few samples while on the tour, which spoiled our lunch.

There were only four of us on this tour and when we got out, we were able to make our own "spoon" chocolates. Here is Jim rolling his spoon in the melted chocolate and then he will place is on the tray next to him. The guide put our spoons in the frig to harden, and we picked them up later and had a treat.

One Huge Chocolate Easter Bunny

Chocolate molds were first manufactured around 1870. Molding is a relatively modern invention. The molds were metal and produced by Le'tang in France, Herman Walker, and Anton Reiche in Germany, and Eppelsheimer and American Chocolate Mold in the U.S. molding reached a zenith in the late 1920s.

Old metal molds can still be used today. But most have become high priced kitchen decorations and are highly valued in the antique trade. Metal molds often times are flat metal trays with repeating stamped impressions. Molds may also be two-sided hinged or clamped together. And, although most molds are holiday themed, the number and type of impression seems limitless.

A Plethora of Packaging ~~ The large variety in chocolate packaging comes from companies competing with each other. Chocolate makers want to remake, repackage, and remarket with the newest design, trendiest colors, and the most clever sayings to grab your attention and dollar. This effort to gain your business has left an interesting and creative legacy for us to enjoy.

Now we head into their museum section where they have lots of old chocolate boxes and tins on display. Old chocolate boxes have always been recycled for new uses. Some are mini time capsules, storing our buttons, bills and bobbles. Fortunately, people also write on boxes. These notes give us valuable information about the boxes, their owners, and, in some cases, date them for us.

The Bunte Brothers were a famous Chicago Chocolate company. One of their marshmallow egg boxes got a second chance, being recycled into a "Bunte Bill Box." This box was used for tax papers from 1954.

"Black Shoes"

These wooden boxes and barrels are typical of how chocolate was shipped in the 19th and early 20th century.

Picture This?

The chocolate industry was feminist before anyone knew what women's rights were. The first modern chocolate box featured Richard Cadbury's daughter. Since then, women have been routinely portrayed on chocolate box lids. The original cover girls!

The first chocolate box is credited to Richard Cadbury, the famous English chocolate maker. Mr. Cadbury used the most beautiful women he knew to adorn the lids -- including a painting of his own daughter and her kitten. Women have since been the favorite subjects for chocolate box covers.

Chocolate boxes are a relatively new invention. Prior to the late 1800s, most food items were sold bulk from display cases, sacks, barrels, or bins. Who made each food was little noticed. In our century such a lack of brand name awareness is unbelievable.

World's Largest Valentine heartbox.
It's 4 feet tall and holds 100 lbs. of chocolate

Marshall Fields in Chicago, Illinois produced this box, which is probably the world's largest commercially produced box. It is made only for special gifts from the company to V.I.P.'s. Marshall Fields holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the world's largest chocolate box as of November 14, 2002. The Franco mint box weighed 3,226 lbs.

Tins have traditionally been used for the packaging of cocoa. These metal containers are highly collectible. Finding one in mint condition is rare. Tin rusts, dents, and scratches very easily. Cocoa tins were preferred by chocolate companies to seal in freshness and taste, while sealing out humidity and odors. Thomas Fleming wrote in Boy's Life in 1998 about a cocoa tin so air and water tight that after being tossed over a sinking ship in 1933, it washed ashore years later in Wales -- and still contained a legible note. Today cocoa tins make great collectables and colorfully reflect (and preserve) our past.

Mint Tins

Tin Chocolate Boxes

Glass Cocoa Tin

The Massachusetts Chocolate Company produced Wan-eta cocoa and packaged it in glass mason jars. Many materials over the years have been used to substitute for metal. The most common replacement material is paper. The Trueworth "tin" above is a good example.

Chocolate Pots ~~ For most of its history chocolate has been consumed as a drink, hot or cold. And, since ancient times, chocolate was the beverage of the social elite. Only in the 20th century was chocolate available to everyone and consumed as eating chocolate.

Chocolate pots were in most fashionable homes. Their elegance and style matched the taste of the times. Remarkably, however, chocolate pots have maintained similar shape, size, and use.

Chocolate pots are generally tall and slender with a short spout. The spout is normally on the upper lip of the pot. Often chocolate pots also have an opening in the lid for a stirring stick.

Chocolate Mayan Glyph

This is a printing of the Mayan symbol for the word chocolate, or "Kakaw." The Glyph is made up of two parts. From right to left, the first symbol is called a comb and the second symbol is a fish.