THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE FEBRUARY 11, 2023, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURA’S FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE.

I’m a big fan of chocolate. But you’ll never see me with a Russell Stover’s box or Whitman’s Sampler. No shade to anyone who loves that kind of thing, but give me a single morsel of pure, dark chocolate over a box of cream-filled confections any day. And when it comes to Valentine’s Day candy, I find the onslaught of ads a bit too cutesy. So today, I’ve decided to dwell in a darker sphere where I’m far more comfortable: death.

It’s not that I find death romantic. But I do think funerary traditions show how people appreciate those that they value and love. And in some cultures, people express this through cacao—the plant that produces our beloved chocolate.

In fact, artifacts from ancient Maya tombs are the main reason why we know anything about early uses of cacao. Vessels found in the burial sites of royalty and elites not only featured artistic depictions of cacao but—after chemical analysis—were found to have held cacao residue inside, suggesting that the living left edible offerings to honor their dead rulers and relatives.

Cameron McNeil, an anthropologist at Lehman College, CUNY, has studied cacao-containing vessels from Maya archaeological sites. Copán, a site located in modern-day Honduras, held a wealth of cacao-based offerings in its tombs and burial sites that reveal much about the value of cacao during the Early Classic period of Maya history (400 to 600 AD). These vessels ranged from a deer-shaped bowl that likely held powdered cacao to a beautifully painted vessel that probably contained a frothy cacao drink.

Why was cacao important as a funerary offering? “It was valuable, but they also just enjoyed it,” McNeil says. The seeds were so precious they served as currency. And when it came time to appease ancestors and gods, the many forms of cacao—raw seeds, pulp, powders, porridges, beverages, and sauces—were a worthy gift. But the offerings weren’t just appeals to spirits: They were a flex for the living, cementing the current ruler’s role as “the person with the power to call on ancestral forces,” as McNeil writes in her paper “Death and Chocolate: The Significance of Cacao Offerings in Ancient Maya Tombs and Caches at Copán.”

Today, chocolate—the processed form of cacao and sugar—still functions as a worthy gift on special occasions. But while modern lovers will be exchanging chocolate this Valentine’s Day, McNeil doubts that romantic love played a large role in Maya cacao traditions of yore.

“It’s not associated with love per se,” she says. “Because if you look at traditional Maya culture, I’m not sure how much love is the basis of things and that people traditionally married for love. But it’s ce