Dr. James Fitzsimmons

And it wasn't like Swiss Miss chocolate, nothing like that.

It wasn't like that.

It was actually really bitter and kind of gross, actually.

But the reason why it was important was because it was hard to grow.

Chocolate's a really finicky plant.

And because at various points in time in Mesoamerican prehistory, it was actually being used, the beans were being used as the lowest denomination of currency.

So if you, when you were drinking chocolate, it was not something you just sort of did in your house or something, right?

You'd usually do it in front of a crowd.

So you think of it as like conspicuous consumption, like, you know, I'm going to flaunt my wealth.

So think of like some guy, they've got like a chocolate pot.

They've put all this labor into grinding, you know, they've had someone put all this labor into grinding the beans down into a sort of a somewhat palatable form, right?

They mix it with water.

It's usually tepid water, sadly.

Um, they might put something in it like chili pepper or honey or something of that sort.

Right.

And they drink it and they drink in front of a crowd and they just like upend it like, ha ha ha ha ha ha, you know, drink it.

Right.

And it's, it's conspicuous consumption.

So it's, it's sort of, I have this and you don't.

They were literally trying to just flex.