Chocolate
2011-01-24
We took a chocolate tour in Tirimbina rainforest one morning. This is a picture of the cacao beans being ground. We learned on this tour that the word "cacao" comes from "caca-agua" or "poo-water," so-dubbed by the Spanish who discovered the pre-Columbians drinking a bitter brown liquid. The guides in Costa Rica told a lot of fibs about the animals, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that the Online Etymology Dictionary
reports rather disappointingly that the word is in fact from the Aztec: from Nahuatl (Aztec)
cacaua, root form of cacahuatl "bean of the cocoa-tree." Incidentally, the guides also told us that the mortar (or "metate") in this picture, made from volcanic rock, is in fact a 3,000-year-old artifact found nearby.
(One can only speculate as to the early experiences of both the British and the French with Arachis hypogaea.)
EXIF
Capture Date: 2011-01-07 11:50:35
Camera: NIKON D5000
Focal Length:
50 mm
Exposure:
1/100 sec
Aperture:
f/5
ISO:
3200
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