a nutritive preparation of the kernels of the cacao nut, usually sweetened with sugar, and aromatized with vanilla, cinnamon, or cloves. It is prepared by triturating in a heated mortar the roasted kernels, which thus, from the oil they contain, assume a pasty consistency; and this paste is then shaped into cakes or sticks in moulds of tin. If necessary, water may be added during the process of trituration. It is either eaten solid, or dissolved in boiling water or milk. Cacao, under its native name of chocolate, had been used for ages as a beverage among the Mexicans previous to the conquest of their country by the Spaniards in 1520; and had long been known in some of the West India Islands before it reached France in 1661, and whence, a few years later, it was introduced into Britain.