Discovery
The discovery of chocolate and its introduction to England
The Spanish
The Spanish are accredited for the discovery of chocolate in 1492.
Herés Cortes, a Spanish explorer, is solely responsible for bringing cocoa beans and the technology to exploit its use back to Europe in 1528.
It was not Christopher Columbus who discovered the New World, as most people like to believe.
When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they did not appreciate the taste of chocolate. To them, it was a bitter unappetising cold drink made with unfamiliar spices and of no interest to the European palate.
In fact, a number of noblemen stated their dissatisfaction with the drink. Girolanco Benzoni wrote in his History of the New World (1575):
‘It seemed more a drink for pigs, than a drink for humanity. I was in this country for more than a year and never wanted to taste it’
- Girolanco Benzoni
Title Page of Historia del Mondo Nuovo (History of the New World)
This book was a popular account of his personal adventures in the America’s and the Colonies, he was not afraid to criticise the colonialists and clearly disliked the culinary skills of the indigenous populous!
The Importance of Sugar
Sugar was not added to chocolate until much later in the century. In fact, the transformation of chocolate into the modern delicacy happened over a period of 300 years.
Spaniards are only responsible for the initial changes to chocolate.
They preferred the drink HOT rather than cold, which had been custom among the Aztec tribe. The Spanish were also much more accustomed to Old World spices such as cinnamon, aniseed and black pepper than the natural flavourings of chilli peppers and a spice known as ‘ear flower’ that was used in the Meso-America chocolate recipes.
Fun Fact
In Spanish, the name of the cocoa bean is ‘cacao’. A name we associate with chocolate today!
Fun Fact
Maria Teresa, the Spanish Infanta is the most famous 'chocoholic'. Legend has it, she liked chocolate so much she gave birth to a black baby!
Infanta Maria Teresa Painted by Diego Velázquez, 1653 ©Museum of Fine Art Boston
Introduction To England
Little by little, word spread about the new exotic chocolate drink.
In the 1600s the Spanish court was Europe’s trend setter for all things fashionable! Travellers came to Madrid to sample elegancies, including the sipping of chocolate.
When chocolate did eventually cross the channel to England in the 1650s, it received a rather mixed opinion.
The ‘foreignness’ of chocolate was important in its early marketing in Europe. Advertisers were vague about where in the world the produce originated, initially selling it as an ‘indiane drink’, meaning a beverage drunk by the Native Indians.
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The Spanish were considered to be the authority on chocolate and its benefits, largely thanks to the work of Colmenero.
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His work, Chocolate or An Indian Drinke, set out to describe what chocolate was and how it was prepared in the Americas and in Spain. To cacao nuts, the Spanish added sugar and a choice of ingredients according to their availability (peppers, cinnamon and aniseed were their favourites). All ingredients were grounded separately and then heated and combined together. The Spanish way to prepare the drink included the addition of a little warm water and stirring it before adding yet more hot water and sugar.
Chocolate or An Indian Drinke written by Antonio Colmenero. This is a later edition published by James Wadsworth (1652)
By the end of the 1650s there were multiple chocolate sellers in London with competing retailers emphasizing the quality and convenience of their goods.
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It was first prescribed by physicians and pharmacists, who were weary of the frothy consistency of the drink. They considered the drink to be dangerous if self-administered and possibly even a cause of death!
Francisco Hernández wrote his botanical text Historia de las Plantas de la Nueva España in 1577. His manuscript is the first detailed description of the natural history of the cacao tree, and he provided a broad range of cultural, dietary and medical information on the various attributes of drinking chocolate:
'The cacahoaquahuitl is a tree of a size and leaves like the citron-tree, but the leaves are much bigger and wider, with an oblong fruit similar to a large melon, but striated and of a red colour, called cacahoacentli, which is full of the seed cacahoatl, which, as we have said, served the Mexicans as coin and to make a very agreeable beverage. It is formed of a blackish substance divided into unequal particles, but very tightly fit among themselves, tender, of much nutrition, somewhat bitter, a bit sweet and of a temperate nature or a bit cold and humid'
- Hernández 1577, p. 304
Francisco Hernández, Historia de las Plantas de la Nueva España, (1577)
Chocolate was widely accepted and approved of by many leading figures of English society!
Henry Stubbe’s wrote a monograph The Indian Nectar or a Discourse Concerning Chocolata in 1662 to advise his readers of chocolate and the misconceptions related to its use.
He first noted that in the Indies, chocolate was drunk on the advice of physicians once or twice a day and was 'helpful to restore energy if one is tired though business and wants speedy refreshment'.
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He wrote of chocolate use in Mexico where its used in the treatment of acute diseases associated with heat and fever, and in the hot distemper of the liver for which they administered the cocoa nut dissolved in water without any other mixture.
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Chocolate could also be added to other ingredients to treat a range of illnesses:
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with achiote to strengthen a debilitated stomach and reduce diarrhoea
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with vanilla to strengthen the brain and womb
Stubbe’s basic recipe for the preparation of medicinal chocolate:
'To every hundred nuts of cacao… put two cods of chile called long red pepper, one handful of anise-seeds, and orichelas [orejaelas], and two of the flowers called mecasuchill, one vaynilla [sic] or instead thereof fix Alexandrian roses beaten to powder, two drams of cinnamon, twelve almonds, and as many hasel-nuts [sic] half a pound of sugar, and as much achiote as would colour it'
- Stubbe 1662, p. 13
The cacao was believed to be very nourishing!
It was rumoured it would sustain soldiers for a long season and Indian women who ate chocolate often, so much so that they scarcely consumed any solid meat yet, they did not exhibit any decline in strength!
One of the first written accounts of chocolate in England was by James Wadsworth ‘A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate’.
According to Wadsworth, chocolate was useful for:
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Helping digestion
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It cured consumption
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The cough of the lungs
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The plague of the guts
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Green sickness
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Jaundice
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And a manner of other inflammations, opalizations and obstructions.
A number of famous thinkers across the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries made their opinions known about this new exotic drink. It was clearly the new ‘fashionable’ product to the market.
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Foucault for instance, wrote a thesis ‘or the healthful uses of chocolate’ in which he labelled chocolate as the true food of gods!
Samuel Pepys, wrote about chocolate in great detail. In 1662 wrote he had tried drinking chocolate for the first time, to ‘settle his stomach’. When writing what he had for breakfast in 1664, he explains having breakfast with a colleague and drinking a morning draft of chocolate
Whilst some people loved this new exotic drink, others were still cautious of its temptations:
Madame de Sevigne, a French aristocrat who was known for her juicy letter writing, famously cautioned her daughter about chocolate:
‘And what do we make of chocolate? Are you not afraid it will burn your body? Could it be that these miraculous effects mask some kind of inferno in the body?’
-Madame de Sevigne's letter to her Daughter
The physician, Dr Daniel Duncan published work in 1706, named Wholesome Advice Against the Abuse of Hot Liquors, which detailed the reasons why people should not drink an excess of the liquors of tea, coffee and chocolate. He regarded the pleasure of Coffee, Chocolate, and Tea as a dangerous snare.
‘Voluptuousness creates in us an aversion to good things, because they are not pleasant; and an inclination to bang things, because they please us; both these things happen in the use of coffee, tea and chocolate.’
- Dr Daniel Duncan
Although many were cautious, the demand for chocolate seemingly grew more and more…
