- The food of the gods in Aztec mythology makes its first appearance in European culture in a letter from Hernán Cortés (30.10.1520) in which he says that it is “a fruit like an almond, which they sell milled and which they treat as money throughout the land, using it to buy all that they require in the markets and other places”.
This was the cocoa bean, which centuries ago performed two functions: it was an exquisite delicacy, drunk by Moctezuma from fine gold goblets, and it was also a trading currency.
|
|
|
Monks preparing chocolate
|
Exhibition
|
- You are in the monastery in whose kitchens, in 1534, chocolate was prepared for the first time in Europe.
- History recounts that a Cistercian monk who travelled with Hernán Cortés to Mexico, Brother Jeronimo of Aguilar, sent the first cocoa beans ever seen in Europe to the Abbot at Monasterio de Piedra, Antonio de Alvaro, together with a recipe for chocolate.
- The monks at this monastery were therefore the first people in Europe to taste this delicacy, explaining the long tradition of chocolate-making in the Cistercian order. Some monasteries even have a small room over the cloisters known as the chocolate room, where chocolate was made and tasted.
|
|
|
19th century chocolate-making machine
|
Exhibition
|
|