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  2007 Newsletter

 2008 Newsletter

Below is the article "Chocolate an agent for Cultural Exchange" from Honduras This Week

Emma Lovegrove
Honduras This Week

Emma Lovegrove/Honduras This Week
Peggy Van Lierde and her husband demonstrate chocolate making at Chiminike Museum in Tegucigalpa.

Recently, Peggy Van Lierde’s quest for the true origins of chocolate took her to the Chiminike Museum in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Van Lierde, the Director of the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate in Brussels, Belgium, has come here on a mission of discovery. She intends to learn more about the rich history and processes by which chocolate has been made for over 2,000 years in Central America. Chiminike, an interactive children’s museum, has facilitated this quest, while simultaneously using the opportunity to develop their own
exhibition upon the history and manufacturing process involved in the production of chocolate.

One could almost say that Van Lierde, whose passion for chocolate can be traced back two generations, has chocolate running through her veins. In the 1940s Van Lierde’s grandmother founded ‘Godiva’ chocolate, a famous European brand renowned worldwide for its exquisite quality. Inspired by the success of her mother, Van Lierde’s mother, Mrs. J. Draps, opened her own chocolate shop in Belgium. Despite its success across the country, Draps felt compelled to teach people more about how chocolate is produced. In 1988 she opened the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate, the first museum in
Belgium dedicated to the promotion and history of chocolate. An innovative
project, the museum brought the history and techniques used to produce cocoa and chocolate into the public domain.

Van Lierde, initially encouraged to undertake this trip by the Ambassador of Honduras in Belgium, explained that she has two purposes for her visit. Her first ambition is to learn more about the origins of chocolate and the legend
of the Mayans.

Travelling with her husband, Van Lierde will pay her first visit to Copan and a cocoa plantation close to San Pedro Sula. In Copan, a place which was once the epicenter of the Maya nation, Van Lierde has arranged to meet with famous archaeologist Ricardo Agurcia, who has been unearthing Mayan
artifacts in Copan for over thirty years. Lierde wishes to witness and understand the ancient symbols and artifacts which reveal how chocolate was processed thousands of years ago by immersing herself in the rich culture of Copan.

It was the Mayans who first provided tangible evidence of cocoa as a domesticated crop, and archaeological evidence in Costa Rica shows that cocoa may have been drunk by Maya traders as early as 400BC. According to Van Lierde, in Belgium, it is commonly believed that chocolate originates
in Africa; it is her wish to illuminate its Central American roots through a new exhibition to be opened in the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate. She will highlight via informative panels, that chocolate was first discovered by Europeans in 1502, when Christopher Columbus arrived in Nicaragua in search of exotic spices and riches. However, it was Herman Cortés, leader of
an expedition in 1519 to the Aztec empire for Xocoatl, who was the first explorer to take chocolate back to Spain, and consequently the rest of Europe. Xocoatl is the bitter chocolate drink that was consumed by Mayans for breakfast, lunch and dinner, every child’s dream!

The second purpose of Van Lierde’s visit is to develop a partnership between the two museums with the intention of assisting the Chiminike Museum in their desire to create an exhibition dedicated to the history and origins of chocolate in Central America. The Chiminike Museum is striving to teach and
promote the chocolate industry to children as a possible opportunity for employment in Honduras. The Museum and Van Lierde see it as an opportunity to develop cocoa plantations and production in Honduras. The export of cocoa could potentially play an invaluable role in the economy of Honduras. According to the International Cocoa Organization, in 2005 to 2006, Honduras imported 10 to 100,000 tons of Cocoa a year and ‘Hondudiario’ recently noted that profits from exporting cocoa have reached an all time high in the international market.

Honduras is one of many equatorial countries that provide an ideal climate for the growth of cocoa.

This venture is an exciting opportunity for an exchange between two museums, one in Belgium and one in Honduras. A sharing of techniques and ideas could create novel and innovative recipes, blending the two cultures in a marriage of Mayan spices and traditional European chocolate manufacturing techniques. Belgians are famous for their praline, a chocolate casing covering a soft, fondant, cream centre. Working with masters of the chocolate trade in Belgium, Van Lierde intends to develop a new type of chocolate praline, inspired by the Mayan roots of cocoa.

Van Lierde sums up the project as “a blending of two cultures in a piece of chocolate”.

Conducted in the sleek and modern backdrop of the Chiminike Museum, the interview concluded with Van Lierde’s warm and unprompted praise of her time here in Honduras and the beauty that this country has to offer. Both
Roger Mendoxa, the Assistant Director of Trade and Projects at the Chiminike Museum, and Van Lierde are positive that this fruitful and novel partnership between the two museums will continue to develop and prosper for the foreseeable future.