Foods and Household Management: A Textbook of the Household ArtsKinne, Helen
General
Foods and Household Management: A Textbook of the Household Arts
Kinne, Helen
Cooking; Food; Home economics
=Cocoa and chocolate.=——Cocoa and chocolate are manufactured from the seed
of a tree, _Theobroma cacao_, grown in tropical America. The seeds, when
removed from the containing pod, are fermented to improve the flavor,
dried, cleaned, roasted, and finally ground. The outer husk is loosened in
the roasting, and is then removed, and sold as “cocoa shells.” It is the
basis of a cheap beverage with an agreeable flavor. The first crushing of
the seeds gives cocoa “nibs,” and these are further ground in a mill, and
finally molded into the cake of plain chocolate. The addition of sugar,
vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes other spices gives a variety of sweet
chocolates. Powdered cocoa is prepared by the removal of the fat, which is
a valuable product in itself, sugar and flavorings are added and sometimes
a starch. The Dutch manufacturers use alkalies for removing the crude
fiber and improving the color, and the consequent loss of flavor is
balanced by the use of other flavoring matter. The adulterations of cocoa
are largely starch in excess. The French and American cocoas are flavored
with vanilla, the Dutch manufacturers using cinnamon as well.
The so-called soluble cocoas are very finely ground, and therefore mix
readily with water, remaining in suspension for some time, but the cocoa
itself is not dissolved. Powdered cocoa is bought in tin cans, is cheap,
and is even more economical if bought in large cans than in small.
Chocolate is more expensive always than the cocoa, and may be bought in
cakes in pound packages, or in powdered form for immediate use.
_Coffee_ is the inner seed of a berry from a tree, _Coffea arabica_, the
process of manufacture consisting of the removal of the outer pulp,
fermentation, washing, drying, and roasting. The first stages of the
process are carried on at the coffee plantation, the raw berries being
imported, and roasted shortly before using. The roasting in cocoa, coffee,
and tea is necessary for desirable flavors, the heat developing volatile,
aromatic principles, caramelizing the sugar, and causing other chemical
changes. The differences in the flavor of coffees are due to the variety,
the soil and climate, and methods of production and manufacture. No coffee
grown in the western hemisphere has excelled, and scarcely has any
equaled, the original Mocha and Java coffees, and these have long been
trade names for coffee from other places, because of the popular liking
for these brands. Brazil is now the great coffee producing country of the
world, and from South and Central America and the West Indies we obtain
coffee of excellent flavor.
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