TASK 9 DISCUSSION

  One Heart Group

Good afternoon friends...

On this occasion, we will discuss or discuss assignment 6. It is hoped that friends can participate well in this discussion. Here there are 10 questions, please find the answers from the text that has been provided. 

Happy Discussing..

READING MATERIALS AND TASKS

The origins of chocolate

 

There are various activities and English exercises after the passage below.

 

 

Pre-reading discussion

• Do you like chocolate?
• What type of chocolate do you like - milk chocolate or plain chocolate?
• What is the difference? Are there any other types of chocolate?
• Where does cocoa come from?
• Do you know where/when chocolate was first enjoyed?

 

Quick reading/scanning

 

Scan the text and make notes on the references to these dates:

 

• 600 A.D.
• 1325
• 1502
• 1504
• 1521
• 1528
• 1650s
• 1657
• 1853

 

What does A.D. stand for? What is a more modern way of expressing this meaning? (C.E. = Common Era and B.C.E. = Before Common Era)

 

Vocabulary

What new words can you find in the text? can you work out the meaning of new words from the context?

 

The origins of chocolate can be traced back to the ancient Maya and Aztec civilisations in Central America who first enjoyed a much-prized spicy drink 'chocolatl', made from roasted cocoa beans. Chocolate was exclusively for drinking until the early Victorian times when a technique for making solid 'eating' chocolate was devised. Throughout its history, whether as a cocoa or drinking chocolate beverage or confectionery treat, chocolate has always been a much sought after food.

The story of cocoa begins with cocoa trees, which grew wild in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon basin and other tropical areas in Central and South America for thousands of years. It was the Maya Indians, an ancient people whose descendants still live in Central America, who first discovered the delights of cocoa as long ago as 600 AD. 'Chocolatl' was consumed in large quantities by the Aztecs as a luxury drink. The Aztec version of this popular drink was described as 'finely ground, soft, foamy, reddish, bitter with chilli water, aromatic flowers, vanilla and wild bee honey.' The Yucatan Peninsula, a tropical area in what is now Southern Mexico, where wild cocoa trees grew, was where the Maya lived. They harvested cocoa beans from the rain forest trees, then cleared areas of lowland forest to grow their own cocoa trees in the first known cocoa plantations.

The Maya Indians and the Aztecs had recognised the value of cocoa beans both as an ingredient for their special drink and as currency for hundreds of years before cocoa was brought to Europe. An early explorer visiting Central America found that 4 cocoa beans could buy a pumpkin; 10 could buy a rabbit; 100 were needed to buy a slave.

The Aztecs were an ancient nomadic people who founded a great city in the Valley of Mexico in 1325 - Tenochtitlan. Because of their dry climate the Aztecs were unable to grow cocoa trees themselves so they had to obtain supplies of cocoa beans from 'tribute' or trade. 'Tribute' was a form of taxation paid by provinces conquered by the Aztecs in wars. Their rich prosperous capital city, and its culture, were destroyed by the Spanish in 1521, and later occupied and renamed, Mexico City.

Christopher Columbus is said to have brought the first cocoa beans back to Europe from his fourth visit to the 'New World' between 1502 and 1504. However the many other treasures on board his galleons were far more exciting so the humble cocoa beans were neglected. It was his fellow explorer, the Spanish Conquistador Don Hernan Cortes, who first realised the commercial value of the beans. He brought cocoa beans back to Spain and very gradually the custom of drinking chocolate spread across Europe. When he returned to Spain in 1528, he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and equipment to make drinking chocolate. Soon 'chocolate' became a fashionable drink enjoyed by the rich in Spain. It took nearly a century for the news of cocoa and chocolate to spread across Europe, as the Spanish kept it a closely guarded secret.

When chocolate finally reached England in the 1650s it was a drink for the wealthy due to the high import duties on cocoa beans. Chocolate cost the equivalent of 50-75 pence a pound (approximately 400g), when the pound sterling was worth considerably more than it is today. But gradually it became more freely available. The first London Chocolate House was opened in 1657 by a Frenchman who produced the first advertisement for the chocolate drinks to be seen in London: "In Bishopgate St, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West Indian drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates."

Fashionable chocolate houses were soon opened where the people could meet their friends to enjoy various rich chocolate drinks while discussing the serious political, social and business affairs of the day or gossiping. As the demand for cocoa grew, cocoa plantations were started in the West Indies, the Far East and Africa and the price of cocoa beans gradually began to fall as greater quantities came onto the market. However it was not until 1853 that significant reductions in the import duties were made and, with the Industrial Revolution making transport easier, chocolate became available to a large percentage of the population. Chocolate was exclusively for drinking until early Victorian times when a technique was perfected for making solid 'eating' chocolate

 

True or false? (According to the passage.)

 

1. Chocolate was eaten as a solid in South America
2. Chocolate was later consumed as a drink in Europe.
3. Cocoa trees were grown in plantations by the Aztecs.
4. Chocolate was first consumed by the Mayan people in 600A.D.
5. Chocolate was consumed a great deal by all Aztec people whenever they wished.
6. The chocolate drunk by Mayan people was sweet and had an attractive smell.
7. Cocoa beans were the only form of money that the Aztec and Mayan people used.
8. The Spanish invaded the Aztec and Mayan kingdoms.
9. The Mayan capital Tenochtitlan was destroyed by the Spanish.
10. People did not feel that the cocoa been was important when Columbus brought it back to Spain.
11. The Spanish were not keen to tell people how to find the cocoa beans.
12. Chocolate was very expensive when it first came to England.
13. There were three reasons why chocolate became more easily available to
    everyone in Britain.

 

The slave traders who deal in misery so we can eat chocolate

 

Chocolate instantly conjures associations with good things. In this country, that means much more than the self-indulgent pleasure of eating it; there's an entire philosophy of doing good, begun more than 200 years ago and still expressed today in the Bourneville Estate and the work of the Rowntree Trust.

The great Quaker families (Cadbury, Rowntree and Terry) were ahead of their time in their attitudes towards workers. Exploitation was a dirty word for them at a time when it was commonplace elsewhere. At the beginning of the 21st century, it seems grotesque to link an even more terrible practice with the chocolate which still carries those families' names. Chocolate, it seems, carries modern-day slavery into our homes. There is no other way to describe the conditions in which an unknown number of cocoa farm workers are living in Cote D'Ivoire, the West African country which produces almost half the world's cocoa beans. The crop makes its way anonymously on to the world market and virtually no major cocoa buyer can be sure that its product is not tainted with slavery.

"In Cote D'Ivoire, slavery is common knowledge," says Kate Blewett, the ground-breaking film-maker who, with partner Brian Woods, went undercover in China eight years ago to make the documentary which shook the world, The Dying Rooms. "I just don't understand why we have been the ones to find it," she says. "I don't know why one of the multinational companies hasn't gone back to the roots and checked it out. Or perhaps the World Bank, the organisation responsible for restructuring the Cote D'Ivoire's economy in the interests of farmers and workers. If it had, it would have seen what we saw."

"It isn't the slavery we are all familiar with and which most of us imagine was abolished decades ago," says Brian. "Back then, a slave owner could produce documents to prove ownership. Now, it's a secretive trade which leaves behind little evidence. Modern slaves are cheap and disposable. They have three things in common with their ancestors. They aren't paid, they are kept working by violence or the threat of it and they are not free to leave. People are still living like this all over the world."

They discovered young men, mostly teenagers as young as 14 and 15, are bought and sold in markets for as little as £20. They have usually walked from even poorer countries looking for work, and believe they are being taken to one of Cote D'Ivoire's one million small cocoa farms, where they will be paid at the end of a year's work. Instead, they work for nothing, staying on for two, three or even four years in the hope that their long-promised wages will eventually materialise. Some are held captive by this fact alone; that if they leave, they will never be paid. Others stay because, many hundreds of miles from home with no money and often weak from hard labour and little food, they have no idea where they are and no resources to find out. Should one of them try to leave, he will almost certainly be caught and viciously beaten.

Although the British chocolate companies, through the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Alliance (BCCCA), deny any knowledge of such practices, the problem is so rife, and each farmer's crops so anonymous in the market, that virtually no major cocoa buyer, British or foreign, can be sure their chocolate is not a product of slavery.

Kate and Brian made four trips to the Cote D'Ivoire and they smile grimly at the protests of the chocolate industry that the farms they visited were isolated aberrations from the norm of honestly-run family farms. "We were not in a position to conduct a national survey of one million Cote D'Ivoire farms," says Brian. "But we can say that farms we visited were a random sample. We simply went to a big town in the west of the country and then looked for farms around it. When we saw cocoa, we walked into the trees to talk to any workers we could find -- about 100 on different farms. Of those, I can only recall one who said he had been paid, and he was working on the only cotton farm we found."

The president of the Malian Association of Friends, based in Cote D'Ivoire , believes as many as 90 per cent of cocoa farms there are using some slave labour. He believes that the problems are complex and won't be solved by Westerners boycotting chocolate. That would only slash the already cripplingly low price of cocoa, cutting farmers' profits from which to pay workers.

Kate and Brian are clear that just as chocolate consumers can make chocolate producers sit up and take notice with their purchasing power, so the vast confectionery companies could use their purchasing power to eradicate cocoa slavery. "These are companies whose annual turnover is bigger than the entire Gross National Product of Cote D'Ivoire and Mali combined," says Kate. "If they wanted to change things, they could, and they could do it far quicker and more effectively than any bank or government."

Asking what the British public can do prompts Kate and Brian to repeat the words which, over the years, have become their motto. Appropriately, given the history and traditions of chocolate production in this country, it is an old Quaker saying: "It is better to light a single candle than curse the darkness."

 

Pre-reading activities

 

1. Do you think there is still trading in slaves today?
2. Do you think this is likely to be carried out in exactly the same way as in the past?
3. What do you think deal in misery means?
4. What do you think the title means?
5. Which parts of the world do you think might be mentioned in this article?

 

Skimming

 

Skim the text in no more than 3 minutes to find out what the article is about. Compare what you an other students find.

 

 

Scanning

 

Quickly scan the text to find the answers to these questions.

1. What are the names of the Cadbury families?
2. What are the names of the two film makers?
3. Where have they worked before?
4. What adjective is used to describe the film that they made?
5. Are the slaves mainly men or women? What sort of age are they?
6. How much may a slave cost?
7. What is the BCCCA?
8. How many workers did the film makers talk to?
9. What percentage of farms may use slave labour?
10. Whom do they accuse of doing nothing?

 

Vocabulary

 

Look at these words in the text and try to guess the meaning from the context.

Adjectives	Adverbs	Nouns	Verbs
self-indulgent grotesque modern-day commonplace tainted undercover secretive rife random	anonymously viciously grimly cripplingly	exploitation aberrations motto	to eradicate

 

 

 

 

 

 

Questions

1. In the first two paragraphs the writer is describing something that (s)he finds very surprising. What is it?
2. The crop makes its way anonymously on to the world market and virtually no major cocoa buyer can be sure that its product is not tainted with slavery. Can you explain what this sentence means?
3. What are the three similarities between slavery in the past and slavery today?
4. Do the writers believe that slavery is limited to certain areas of the world?
5. Several reasons are given for slaves not running away; can you find three?
6. Did Kate and Brian believe the chocolate companies when they said that they knew nothing about slavery?
7. Did the president of the Malian Association of Friends agree with the idea of a boycott by western consumers?
8. Whom do the writers accuse of neglecting their responsibilities? How is it that they have the power to push for change?
9. Rewrite this saying in your own words: "It is better to light a single candle than curse the darkness."