Editing Chocolate bar (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Nobleman offering cocoa paste.jpg|thumb|upright|A Mayan holding sticks of ground cocoa paste]]
Solid chocolate was probably already consumed in [[pre-Columbian America]], in particular by the [[Aztecs]], despite the beverage being the traditional form of consumption of cocoa in [[Mesoamerica]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EqfvgerVsuEC | title=The Aztecs: New Perspectives | publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]] | author=Van Tuerenhout, Dirk R. | year=2005 | pages=112 | isbn=9781576079218 | quote=It is of interest that even though the rich and famous would drink their chocolate—the most traditional way of consuming chocolate—soldiers would be issued chocolate in solid format. Military rations would include chocolate made into wafers or pellets.}}</ref> In fact, any [[cocoa liquor|finely ground cocoa]] that is not immediately used to make a drink turns into solid chocolate.<ref name=Coe>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hKVbCgAAQBAJ | title=America's First Cuisines | publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] | author=Coe, Sophie D. | authorlink=Sophie Coe | year=2015 | orig-date=1994 | pages=56 | isbn=9781477309711 | quote=Most sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century cacao was for drinking, but its consumption in solid form was not unheard of. To make a drink out of processed cacao beans they must be ground, and then, unless they are immediately made into a drink, the mass congeals. [...] There is no way of exactly dating the birth of the chocolate confection...}}</ref> The grinding of the cocoa beans was done with a stone [[metate]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EDFrEAAAQBAJ | title=Chocolate: A Cultural Encyclopedia | publisher=ABC-CLIO | author=Collins, Ross F. | year=2022 | pages=302 | isbn=9781440876080 | quote=While the metate served many kitchen uses, it became a central focus for chocolate making in pre-Columbian Central America. From there, versions moved to Europe and North America to serve the same function.}}</ref> Dominican friar [[Diego Durán]] mentions in his writings that Aztec soldiers carried small balls of ground cocoa among other military rations.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=193tKPdM-ykC | title=The History of the Indies of New Spain | publisher=University of Oklahoma Press | author=Durán, Diego | page=350 | year=1994 | isbn=9780806126494 | quote=The soldiers carried a quantity of provisions, such as toasted kernels as well as maize flour, bean flour, toasted tortillas, sun-baked tamales and others that had a kind of mold, great loads of chiles, and cacao that had been ground and formed into small balls.}}</ref> Cocoa was introduced into Europe in the early 16th century, possibly already under its processed (solid) form.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sseSDwAAQBAJ | title=Power, Political Economy, and Historical Landscapes of the Modern World | publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] | author=DeCorse, Christopher R. | year=2019 | pages=107 | isbn=9781438473437 | quote=Cacao first arrived in Spain in the 1520s, then the Spanish Netherlands in 1606 (Norton 2008). Braudel (1992) traces the first arrival of cacao to Europe in the form of loaves and tablets—already processed, but solid.}}</ref>

Until the 18th century, chocolate was essentially consumed as a drink. Transport of cocoa beans was slow and difficult, therefore making the product very expensive in Europe. Chocolate was usually sold as a solidified ground but still grainy cocoa paste (in the form of blocks, sticks or balls) to be dissolved in water or milk, either plain or already sweetened and flavoured.<ref name=Cooke>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8uPumT5MhsC | title=What's to Eat?: Entrées in Canadian Food History | publisher=[[McGill-Queen's Press]] | author=Cooke, Nathalie | year=2009 | pages=83 | isbn=9780773577176 |quote=What constituted chocolate at the time? According to various inventories from Louisbourg, solid chocolate was sold as balls or sticks of varying weights. Chocolate came either "prepared," meaning that it had already been ground down into a paste of cocoa solids and fats, mixed with sugar and aromatics (usually cinnamon and vanilla, and sometimes anise, orange flower water, or ambergris – flavourings preferred by the French), then allowed to harden, or "unprepared," consisting of a hardened paste of plain chocolate. In the latter instance, spices and sweeteners would be added after the grated chocolate ball or stick was mixed with hot liquid.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rZstCwAAQBAJ | title=Chocolate Science and Technology | publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] | author=Afoakwa, Emmanuel Ohene | year=2016 | pages=4 | isbn=9781118913789 | quote=At this point, chocolate was still consumed in liquid form and was mainly sold as pressed blocks of a grainy mass to be dissolved in water or milk...}}</ref> It is unclear when bars or tablets of chocolate (meant to be eaten straight as a candy rather than grated into a drink) were made for the first time.<ref name=Coe/> It is known, however, that the consumption of solid chocolate by the wealthy increased by the end of the 18th century.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bIIeBQAAQBAJ | title=The Oxford Companion to Food | publisher=OUP Oxford | author=Davidson, Alan | year=2014 | pages=183 | isbn=978-0-19-104072-6 |quote=Already by the end of the 18th century there had been a perceptible increase in the amount of chocolate being eaten, in slabs and pastilles...}}</ref>

[[File:Mexican Chocolate.jpg|thumb|upright|An unrefined chocolate disc for drinking chocolate]]
The production of chocolate specifically meant to be eaten in bars may predate the [[French Revolution]]. The [[Marquis de Sade]] wrote to his wife in a letter dated May 16, 1779, complaining about the quality of a care package he had received while in prison. Among the requests that he made for future deliveries were for cookies that "must smell of chocolate, as if one were biting into a chocolate bar." This phrasing is highly suggestive of chocolate bars being eaten by themselves and not just grated into chocolate-based drinks.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grivetti |first1=Louis |last2=Shapiro |first2=Howard-Yana |date=2009 |title=Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage |location=[[Hoboken, New Jersey]] |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |page=746 |isbn=978-0-470-12165-8 |author-link2=Howard-Yana Shapiro}}</ref> Another illustration is given by a contemporary encyclopedia, which mentions "bonbons", "chocolate-covered pistachios" and "white chocolate".<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PxiROR0RgD4C | title=Journal encyclopédique ou universel: tome III | publisher=Pierre Rousseau | year=1785 | pages=169 | quote=On en fera [chocolat] généralement toutes sortes de bonbons, diablotins & pistaches au chocolat, comme aussi au beurre de cacao ou chocolat blanc}}</ref> Such products would predate the invention of the cocoa press and the "[[Dutch process chocolate|Dutch cocoa]]" by [[Coenraad Johannes van Houten]] and other innovations which made chocolate suitable for mass-production.

Up to and including the 19th century, [[confectionery]] of all sorts was typically sold in small pieces to be bagged and bought by weight.  The introduction of chocolate as something that could be eaten as is, rather than used to make beverages or desserts, resulted in the earliest bar forms, or tablets. At some point, ''chocolates'' came to mean any chocolate-covered sweets, whether nuts, creams (fondant), [[caramel candy|caramel candies]], or others. The chocolate bar evolved from all of these in the late-19th century as a way of [[packaging and labeling|packaging]] and selling candy more conveniently for both buyer and seller; however, the buyer had to pay for the packaging. It was considerably cheaper to buy candy loose, or in bulk.