SC - translation, please

[LrdRas]

At 7:29 AM -0800 3/9/98, Mike C. Baker wrote:
>note: forwarded msg attached.
>The following location reproduces a secondary source which brings
>documentation of chocolate AS A CONFECTION arguably to 1631ce
>(1652CE English translation of 1631ce Spanish manuscript).

It says "apparently a translation of." It would be worth someone trying to
locate the Spanish manuscript to see.

 In which
>source, the Dames of Mexico purchase chocolate compounded with sugar
>as one would any other sweatmeat at shops in the streets.

...

> But this source does provide pre-18th century European
>usage of chocolate candy ("Dames of Mexico" presumably being the
>European colonials and not the peasantry, based upon the titulary
>usage of the term...)

I don't think you can make any such inference--"dame" can simply mean
woman, and would be a natural enough way to refer to native women.

It is the earliest reference I know of to eating something made of
chocolate (as opposed to drinking it), but still leaves open the question
of just what was being eaten. Has anyone on the list experimented with late
period chocolate--presumably either starting with cocoa beans or with
something modern that is derived from cocoa beans in the way late period
chocolate was made? What does combining that with sugar give you?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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