The Olmec were probably the first people to appreciate chocolate. They began cultivating cacao around 1500 B.C., according to Michael Coe, co-author of The True History of Chocolate. The Olmec are best known for their sculptures of giant faces, like this one from La Venta. Their civilization left little in the way of written records, and modern researchers feel that their influence on other Mesoamerican cultures may have been underestimated. This seems to be the case when it comes to chocolate.
The earliest hard evidence of chocolate's being consumed by humans comes from residue in a Mayan vessel dating from before 500 A.D. The Maya combined cocoa with honey, maize, and hot peppers to create a rich, foamy drink described by the Spanish in the 1500s. It was long believed that the Maya were the first to use chocolate.
However, Coe points out that the word "cacao" is derived from the Olmec rather than the Mayan language. Anthropologist Amber VanDerwarker has shown that the Olmec were agriculturalists, managing orchards of fruit trees. Then why not cacao as well?
Further study may be required to establish with certainty whether the Olmec were the very first to discover the food value of chocolate. We can say with confidence that by the time Europeans visited the Americas, chocolate was firmly established as an important food crop.
