5 ioJ C H O In preparing these cakes, the cocoa is properly roasted, and well cleaned, before it is pounded in a mortar to reduce it to a coarse mass, which is afterwards ground as fine as possible on a stone. As soon as it is sufficiently triturated, it is put quite hot into tin moulds, where it congeals in a very short time. — ■ This is the common chocolate, as prepared in England from the co- coa alone, without any other ingre- dient. Sometimes, however, a small quantity of sugar, or of va- nilla, is added, for improving its taste. As these cakes are very liable to contract good as well as bad scents, they should be careful- ly wrapped up in paper, and kept in a dry place. Good, unadulterated chocolate, ought to possess the following pro- perties : a brown colour inclining to red, and rather lively than faint ; a smooth surface not affected by mere contact of the hand ; a fine and uniform consistence on break- in;;' it, without any granulated par- ticles, which arise from the addi- tion of sugar, employed by the ma- nufacturer to conceal still baser ingredients ; lastly, it should easily melt in the mouth, and leave no roughness or astringency, but fa- ther a cooling sensation on the. tongue. — This last quality is the most decisive criterion of genuine chocolate. Among the various experiments made with the view of discovering Substitutes for the expensive nut of the cocoa, in the preparation of chocolate, none has hitherto com- pletely succeeded. The Germans employ sweet almonds, as well as the blanched, dried, and roasted kernels of the hazel, and wall-nut, for this purpose; and M. Mak- CtKaif procured a quantity of oil CHO from the fruit, or kernel, of the lime-tree, which he formed into a paste, resembling chocolate, but it differed much from it, both in taste and flavour. Chocolate, ready made, and co- coa-paste, are prohibited to be im- ported, on penalty of forfeiting the same, and double the value : 10 Geo. I. c. 10, sec. 2.— r-We under- stand, from the " Encyclopaedia Britdn'nica" though we cannot find it in " Steel's Tables of the Custom and Excise Duties," that chocolate, made and sold in Great Britain, pays an inland duty of Is. 6d. per lb. avoirdupois ; that it must be inclosed in papers, con- taining one pound each, and pro- duced at the excise office, to be stamped. — (It is, nevertheless, ge- nerally sold in papers, containing four ounces each.) — On giving three days notice to the excise, private families may make their own chocolate, provided not less than half an hundred weight of nuts, be employed at one time. Considered as an article of diet, chocolate is a nutritive and, in general, wholesome food, welt adapted to the weak stomachs ot invalids and valetudinarians. If duly prepared, and not too much roasted in the nuts (which imparts a dark, rather than reddish colour to the cakes), it is easily dissolved in a liquid state; and, being quick- ly assimilated to alimentary mutter, it is less flatulent, and oppressive, than most vegetable dishes of a viscid, and oil}' nature. To pro- mote its digestion, it ought not to be used without the addition of aromatic spice, such as cinnamon, cardamoms, vanilla, &:c. which last, however, must be sparingly employed, as it is one of the moat heating, and stimulating drugs. Cholera
