:: The have-knots ::

Saturday, May 01, 2004

Somewhere, back in Mesopotamia or Egypt or some other ancient land, people discovered that certain grains could be ground up into mash, and then hardened through heat to create a bland but low-effort diet staple. Then someone discovered that throwing a little yeast into the mix made the resulting substance fluffier.

Later on, some monks got creative and used this technique to create little treats for children, shaped either to represent the tykes' hands clasped in prayer or to represent the holy trinity... maybe even both, depending on whom you talk to. To season these, they used salt, a mineral with a storied history as a nutrient/preservative too long to go into here, but suffice it to say that they had to dig deep, dangerous mines into the earth to get it and at one time it was of greater political and economic value than gold and even opium.

Many years of shipbuilding innovation passed, and imperial ambitions became totally hip. This trend resulted in myriad discoveries, but let's choose two at not-so-random. Some colonists realized that a hitherto obscure little cane brought to Spain from Asia via those culture-mixing Moors called sugar really took to the climate of their new surroundings, and damned if it didn't taste so sweet, so they imported some slaves and set up big fields under the hot sun next to plantation houses where they could drink sugar-derived liquor and inter-marry to pass the time. This netted them a tidy profit. Meanwhile, some conquistadors had befriended sundry indigenous Mesoamerican peoples who pointed them in the direction of the cacao tree and its spicy seeds. They were so delicious, in fact, that the conquistadors ultimately thanked their new pals for the tip with some of their trademark rape and slaughter.

Eventually, some bright person back in the Old Country got the idea to mix all this newly-abundant sugar with the cocoa power derived from the cacao seeds, our old pal salt again (which by now was less expensive), and the lactose-rich secretions of domesticated bovines for good measure so that it was all gooey when heated but fairly solid at room temperature. Oh, yeah, and it tasted like God's tits and could be used by lots of lonely people as a quick-fix surrogate for intimacy. Score.

Light bulb: why not dip those salty prayer-thingies in the goo?

The five most significant continents plus a couple thousand years of tinkering plus some sextants and a few limes to stave off scurvy equals one fantastic snack.

To those who say globalization is underway I respond: it happened centuries ago, its name is the chocolate-covered pretzel, and if the mood is right, I'll suck down four at a time.

Posted by morland @ 10:12 AM

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