10种拥有美妙历史的现代食物(6):巧克力

5. Chocolate

5. 巧克力

When you take a bite out of a well-made chocolate bar, it feels like you’re eating the food of the gods. And, well, you’d be exactly right.

当你从一根做好的巧克力棒上咬下一口的时候，你会觉得自己是在吃神赐的食物。好吧，确实是如此。

The story begins as far back as 1500BC, when the Olmec managed to find and utilize cocoa beans. Of course, it was not called ‘cocoa’ then, but ‘kakawa’ – where we get the name from. They managed to turn it into a drink, but historians are hard-pressed to find any evidence that the Olmec did much else with it.

故事开始于公元前1500年，奥尔梅克人（墨西哥的古印第安人——译者注）发现了可可豆，并研究其用法。当然，那时候它还不叫“可可（cocoa）”，而是“kakawa”——现在的名字由此演变而来。他们将其做成一种饮品，但历史学家们很难找到证据证明奥尔梅克人用它制作了其他的东西。

The Mayans, however, loved the stuff. They identified it as a food of Kon, the god of rain and wind. They drank it, used the mixture as a substitute for blood in rituals, and even used the beans as currency. That’s right; once upon a time, you could buy things with chocolate.

但是玛雅人很爱这种东西。他们确信它是风雨神Kon的一种食物。他们饮用这种饮品，在祭祀仪式上用它代替血，甚至用可可豆来当货币。没错，曾经有一段时间，你可以用巧克力来买东西。

As for the solid bars we all know and love? They didn’t pop up until around 1850AD. Even after all of these years, however, we still love to offer chocolate to people we praise highly.

那么我们所认识且钟爱的巧克力棒呢？它们直到公元1850年才出现。然而，纵然过去了这么多年，我们仍然喜欢为我们珍爱的人赠送巧克力。