Cocoa itself is the nut ground to powder, and
sometimes mixed with sugar, the husk being sometimes ground with it.
In _Chocolate_--a preparation of cocoa--the cocoa is carefully dried and
roasted, and then ground to a smooth paste, the nuts being placed on a hot
iron plate, and so keeping the oily matter to aid in forming a paste.
Sugar and flavorings, as vanilla, are often added, and the whole pressed
into cakes. The whole substance of the nut being used, it is exceedingly
nutritious, and made more so by the milk and sugar added. Eaten with bread
it forms not only a nourishing but a hearty meal; and so condensed is its
form, that a small cake carried in traveling, and eaten with a cracker or
two, will give temporarily the effect of a full meal.
In a hundred parts of chocolate are found forty-eight of fatty matter or
cocoa-butter, twenty-one of nitrogenous matter, four of theobromine,
eleven of starch, three of cellulose, three of mineral matter, and ten of
water; there being also traces of coloring matter, aromatic essence, and
sugar. Twice as much nitrogenous, and twenty-five times as much fatty
matter as wheaten flour, make it a valuable food, though the excess of fat
will make it disagree with a very delicate stomach.
_Alcohol_ is last upon our list, and scientific men are still uncertain
whether or not it can in any degree be considered as a food; but we have
no room for the various arguments for and against.
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