Press Release
CHOCOLATE
From the Ancient Rainforest to the Supermarket Shelf,
Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum Takes Visitors on a Delicious Expedition
A unique tree in a lush tropical environment. A seed so precious it was used as money. A spicy drink and a sweet snack. A heavenly craving and a sublime pleasure. Chocolate is all this…and much more. Explore the relationship between human culture and this rainforest treasure in Chocolate: The Exhibition, on view at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum of Natural History from February 11-August 13, 2006.
Chocolate immerses visitors in a sweet experience, engaging all their senses, and revealing facets of chocolate they may never have considered before. The exhibition explores the plant, the products, the history and the culture of chocolate. And if all that sets mouths watering, the Chocolate Store will send visitors off with a delicious treat to satisfy their cravings.
Liquid gold
In today’s society, chocolate tends to conjure thoughts of a candy treat or a sweet dessert like bon bons, hot fudge and frozen chocolate bars. But it wasn’t always so. The ancient Maya of Central America knew it as a frothy, spicy drink, made from the seeds of the cacao tree and used it in royal and religious ceremonies. How did humans first come to taste these bitter seeds, found deep in the pulp of a large, rough pod the size of a football?
“The ancient Maya supplemented their maize or corn-based diet with a wide variety of native plants, including avocado, soursop, guava and cacao,” said Dr. Bobbi Hohmann, staff archaeologist and curator of Fernbank’s McClatchey Collection. “It is not surprising that they would have experimented with the seeds of some of these species since they were already eating the flesh or pulp of other fruits.”
The Maya let the seeds ferment, dried them in the sun, roasted them, crushed them, added water and spices…and drank. “Recent archaeological research has shown that the Maya were processing cacao seeds and mixing them into a frothy beverage by 600 BCE, which is much earlier than previously documented,” Dr. Hohmann said.
This chocolate drink at first was consumed by rich and poor. But because cacao grows only in the rainforest, it was coveted by other cultures – in particular, the Aztec. It soon became a valuable article of trade; the seeds served as a form of money, and the drink became a luxury for the elite, served in lavishly decorated vessels. When the first Europeans reached the Aztec capital, instead of gold they found treasure troves of cacao seeds.
Chocolate main/2
The exhibition explores the commodification of chocolate by Europeans, and the use of forced labor on colonial plantations to meet the insatiable European demand for chocolate and its new soul-mate, sugar. “It’s a parallel to the stories of gold, diamonds and bananas,” says Jonathan Haas, MacArthur curator of North American anthropology at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where the Chocolate exhibition was developed. “The use of a rare and valuable product becomes stratified; those who produce it can no longer afford to consume it.”
Rooted in the rainforest
Another fascinating part of the exhibition concerns the cacao tree itself (Theobroma cacao), its lowland rainforest ecology, and how it’s grown today. A beautiful tree with delicate flowers, cacao grows only within 20° latitude (about 1,380 miles) of the equator. It’s relatively small, no more than 30 or 40 feet high, and grows naturally in the rainforest understory, in the shade of larger canopy trees.
The cacao tree is different from many other trees in the rainforest that we use for agriculture. Its pollinators are midges, tiny flies that thrive in the decaying vegetable matter and other debris at the base of the tree. Midges stay close to the ground, and that explains another unusual feature of the cacao tree: its flowers grow directly on the trunk and lower branches, where the midges can reach them.
Though humans have now taken cacao from its native home in the Americas to grow it in West Africa, Indonesia, and other tropical lands, the plant remains rooted in its ecosystem and does not thrive outside its natural environment. Without the shade of the rainforest, the soil becomes dried out and eroded, and the tree becomes susceptible to molds and diseases.
To counteract that, growers may add fertilizers and pesticides that can harm both the workers and the environment. Today, though, many cacao farmers and scientists are working together to find ways to grow cacao profitably without destroying the rainforest habitat.
Global commodity…cultural icon
Sustainable cacao-growing, environmental protections, and supporting the genetic diversity of wild cacao are increasingly important topics today, for economic as well as botanical reasons. Thanks to technological advances and mass production – not to mention enormous amounts of advertising – chocolate has become a part of the global market economy. Cacao seeds are traded on the commodities market (under the name “cocoa”), right along with pork bellies and soy. A futures stock ticker display in the exhibition brings this point home with a display of cocoa prices on the world market.
Chocolate main/3
Even so, chocolate retains vestiges of its ceremonial history. Mexicans today use it as an offering on the Day of the Dead, in the form of beans or prepared as mole. Foil-wrapped chocolate coins are given to children as “Chanukah gelt.” (Fernbank Museum of Natural History will also showcase a separate photography exhibition, entitled A Celebration of Souls: Day of the Dead in Southern Mexico from February 11 through August 20.) And in the U.S., of course, chocolate has a place in nearly every holiday celebration: heart-shaped boxes of chocolate for Valentine’s Day, chocolate bunnies for Easter, wrapped candies for trick-or-treaters on Halloween, and cups of hot cocoa to warm Christmas carolers.
“It’s interesting,” notes exhibition developer Anamari Golf, “that chocolate has its deepest cultural roots in places where it’s indigenous, like Mexico, and where it’s been turned into a commodity, like Europe and the U.S. As Jonathan Haas says, in Africa and other places where it’s now grown, it’s too valuable as a crop to be eaten at home.”
The value of chocolate can be measured in sales – $13 billion a year in the U.S. – or in symbols. In this country, for example, chocolate is closely linked not only with love but with patriotism: chocolate has been issued to U.S. soldiers since World War I, and it has even accompanied astronauts into space.
These popular uses of chocolate, along with a fascinating array of chocolate advertising and packaging and a look at myths about chocolate, are all part of the new exhibition Chocolate.
After learning all about chocolate in the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to explore some of the most enjoyable modern chocolates and chocolate products when they visit the Chocolate Store at the end of the exhibition. Products available for purchase include luxury chocolates, chocolate products, books and cookbooks, drink mixes inspired by the Aztec and Maya cultures, classic serving sets and much more .
Public Programs
Fernbank Museum of Natural History is planning an array of public programs, tastings, lectures and other special events to highlight the many facets of chocolate. For programming updates, please call 404.929.6300 or visit www.fernbank.edu/museum.
Organizers
Chocolate and its national tour were developed by The Field Museum, Chicago. A Celebration of Souls: Day of the Dead in Southern Mexico was developed by The Field Museum in collaboration with Mars, Incorporated. Sponsors
This project was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation. Media support is sponsored locally in part by Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Chocolate main/4
Admission
Tickets to Chocolate are included with Museum admission, which is $12 for adults, $11 for students and seniors, and $10 for children. Combination tickets offer greater discounts for children, seniors, and students and can be paired with the IMAX® film Amazon to further explore one of the cultural regions where chocolate was born. Numerous programming events are planned throughout the run of the exhibition. Visit www.fernbank.edu/museum or call 404.929.6300 for details. For tickets, call 404.929.6400.
Special rates are available for tour operators and groups of 10 or more. Call the Museum’s Group Sales office at 404.929.6320.
Hours
Fernbank Museum of Natural History is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Chocolate will also be open Friday nights until 10 p.m. during Martinis & IMAX® with a Museum or combination ticket.
Location and travel information
Fernbank Museum is located at 767 Clifton Road in Atlanta and is accessible by Marta from bus #2 at the North Avenue station. There is also free parking at the Museum.
###
Click here for press contact information.