SC - Re: Fo: your fame spreads

[Mark Waks, AKA Justin du Coeur]

My lady forwarded this to me:

Jane Waks wrote:
> I am not sure where or when I got this url, but I found it most
> interesting..  unfortunately I have not had the time to follow up the
> references, has anyone else seen this before and done any background
> investigation?
> 
> http://www.inmet.com/~justin/chocolate.txt

What sort of background are you looking for? The book comes from the STC
microfilm collection (basically a microfilm set of all books published
in English prior to 1700); I stumbled across it while looking for gaming
sources.

Like the top of the file says, it seems to be a 1652 English translation
of a 1631 Spanish book on hot chocolate. It doesn't really contain any
*big* surprises: it's well-known that the Spanish nobility were well
acquainted with the new-world drink by the very tail end of period. 

It's useful in that it has a few concrete recipes. I haven't gotten
around to trying to concoct it myself, but I gather that some others
have. (I seem to recall that Juana in the West was doing some work on
hot chocolate.) The drink is clearly fairly spicy, but sounds
potentially pretty decent. It's a mild nuisance to reconstruct, mainly
because it is written in terms of number of cacao beans.

The only real surprise in the book is a pretty clear reference to solid
chocolate; however, this has to be taken with a grain of salt. The
source makes it sound like this was only done in Mexico, and it isn't
clear that the practice was known pre-1600. Still kinda interesting,
since most descriptions of early chocolate only talk about the drink.

There's more to the book, of course; it's some 40 pages, mostly on the
subject of medicine. I've typed in all the practical cooking sections;
if I get some time, I'll probably type in the rest. (Not before May,
though...)

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   Carolingia, East
				   Avid period cookbook collector

Random Quote du Jour:

"`I am that merry wanderer of the night'? I am that giggling-dangerous-
 totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb, more like it."
"Shush, Peaseblossom! The Puck might hear you!"
		-- from Sandman
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