Chocolates.

If chocolate has not attained the universal popularity of coffee, it is nevertheless its superior as a food product, at once hygienic and agreeable. The place it should occupy in our regimen gives it an importance, which is daily increasing; in place of poets it has its historians, who are physicians, chemists, and famous gastronomists, and whose eminent opinions, based on positive facts of science, have more weight and authority than the fancies of the imagination or the whims of fashion.

The use of chocolate was introduced into Spain from Mexico at the beginning of the sixteenth century by the companions of Fernando Cortez. Thence it crossed the Pyrenees in 1660, in the train of Maria Theresa, spouse of Louis XIV. It was at first deemed a great luxury to be enjoyed only at the tables of the kings, princes and wealthy financiers of that period; but it gained popularity by degrees, and to-day it has become an almost universal aliment known and praised by every nation of Europe and America.

Chocolate can be used in various forms and generally agrees with all palates. It figures at the feast as well as in the daily routine of domestic life, in sickness as well as in health. It is taken with every repast, at breakfast as well as supper, prepared either with water or milk; at dinner in the form of entremets; at the soiree in ices, bonbons and cakes; between meals, and especially while traveling, it is eaten in the form of tablets, croquettes, sticks, wafers and cigarettes.

In England and the United States powdered cocoas are more extensively used than chocolate in tablets. The best quality of the latter, in which sugar has been incorporated through successive operations, should be preferred and adopted in future for the use of families.