CULINARY INFO
Chocolate

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOCOLATE
Here's the recipe for making a real hot chocolate beverage.

Ingredients
1-2kg (2-4pounds) of cocoa beans.
A manually operated grinder.

Roasting cocao beans
*Roast the green cocao beans over an open fire, while stirring, until they 'pop' (only 75% should be popped or the beans will burn)
*Peel as quickly as possible while hot (cold beans are harder to peel)
*Grind the beans with a pestle and mortar (the resulting oil that will be produced has a bitter taste)

There are now two alternatives: With oil, which gives you a richer, yet bitter flavour and without oil a milder form will result:

With oil (crude cocoa tablets)
*Spread aluminium foil or greaseproof paper on a tray, make small piles of the paste and allow to them rest overnight
*In the morning they should be hard tablets
*Remove them from the aluminium foil/greaseproof paper

Without oil (crude cocoa powder)
*Put the paste inside a fine cloth, close the cloth up and squeeze until the oil comes out (similar to making fresh curds and whey): the more that is squeezed out the better.
*What is left now is either crude chocolate tablets or a crude cocoa powder. You can now make a nice beverage by one of the following three methods:

Basic
*Boil a litre of milk (or water, like in the ancient Mexican style)
*When the milk is warm (not hot) add a chocolate tablet; broken into pieces
*Stir with a blender (but be careful! the blender's electric cord should NOT touch the pot or any other hot thing around it)
*When the chocolate has dissolved add ½ - ¾ cups of sugar (depending how sweet you like your chocolate) and blend in fast; make sure the sugar is completely dissolved in the chocolate otherwise it will be bitter no matter how much sugar you may add afterwards
*Add a teaspoon of cinnamon or natural vanilla flavour (artificial vanilla flavour with chocolate results in an awful medicine like flavour) if you like, and blend again
*Let the mixture boil, when it starts to get bubbly quickly remove the pan from the stove top, and rest the bottom against a soaked cloth
*Put again on stove top, it should get bubbly almost immediately, remove once again and repeat one last time. This aerates the chocolate which enhances the flavour.
*In a mug, put about 1/2-3/4 of the chocolate mixture, and add cold milk, until the temperature and/or the concentration of the flavour is right for your tastes
*Accompany with French/Danish pastries and enjoy!

Mayan "xocoatl"
*Add the crude powder or the chocolate tablets (broken down in a pestle and mortar) and add to cold water
*Bring to a boil over a medium heat while stirring
The Mayans were said to have added local herbs also; but what they might have been as far as I know as been lost in antiquity and no doubt no longer exist!?

Aztec "Cacahuatl"
*Add the crude powder or the chocolate tablets: broken down in a pestle and mortar and add to cold water (the Aztecs are said to have refined the Mayan "xocoatl", by grinding the powder finer than the Mayans)
*Add some chilli water (chop chillies and soak in boiling water to make a 'tea'), vanilla beans/pods and honey
*Let the mixture boil while stirring constantly, when it starts to get bubbly quickly remove the pan from the stove top and allow to cool slightly
*Place back on the flame and continue to stir to the boil again
*Repeat the cooling and re-boiling
*Repeat again: this aerates the chocolate which enhances the flavour