I know that chocolate was firts cultivated by the ancient Mexicans-probably the Maya people. When the spanish nvaded, they took the chocolate beans back to europe, and started adding sugar to the crushed beans. But what was ancient chocate like? Without suagr, I imagine it would have been quite bitter. Is chocolate still prepared the ancient way, in Mexico?
I believe it was prepared in a spiced drink, called xocolatl. Here’s a recipe, though I don’t know how ‘authentic’ it would be. The recipe also calls for sugar, though I don’t think it was in the original drink. It would probably be fairly bitter without sugar, but not much more than, say, black coffee.
As far as it still being prepared in Mexico, I don’t believe so, though I have heard of “Mexican Hot Chocolate,” which is prepared with cinnamon and a few other spices, but is still close to what we think of as hot chocolate.
Can’t speak to ancient chocolate, but Chaos is right about Mexican hot chocolate. Instead of cocoa being the flavoring, finely chopped bittersweet chocolate is what is called for in the recipes I’ve seen. It is a much richer drink than what we think of in the USA.
To this day some Mexican chocolate recipes use pepper, which began with Aztecs.
Dark bitter chocolate is also an ingredient of Mexican *mole *sauce, which goes with meat.
I was at a Christmas party with many Hispanics where they served some hot chocolate. They put some kernels of (cooked) corn in it. We use corn syrup to sweeten many things; perhaps they used some corn (or honey or other natural sweeteners) way back when.