h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cocoa Bean Soup: A traditional pre-Columbian Mexican recipe:

1/5 liter fresh cocoa beans. (Hard to get where they don't grow chocolate.) (Whole, crushed, rolled or minced to your taste)

4 Vanilla pods. (Cut into 1/2 cm lengths.)

1 fresh cayenne pepper. (Cut into 1 mm slices [or as close as you can get to that].)

Bring 1 1/5 liter water to boil, add ingedients, simmer covered as slowly as possible until tender.

Serve.

Maybe sounds a little scary, is rather spicy, strained to remove solids
produces a pink broth.

Sounds very interesting. Cayenne pepper is supposed to be very good for you. Maybe it was originally health concoction, a sort of pick-me-up? Do you cook this yourself?

I've got to say it is a little stimulating.

With respect to the whole nine yards recipe*, got lucky once on a Mexican vacation trip and found whole cocoa fruit being offered in the market place. Even vanilla pods are difficult to get these days, the market has gone mostly to synthetic flavorings. When I was a kid I could get them by the handful and chew them like licorice sticks.

My sister has been negotiating with so. Cal. greenhouse growers for vanilla plants. They are reluctant to let go of any of their stocks.

*For the strained herbal beverage, substitute 1 heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder, but insist on real vanilla. The synthetic flavoring does not harmonize well.