SC - Chocolate documentation?

[david friedman]

rygbee at montana.com wrote:
>
><< Modern merchants sell Carob as an equivalent-substitute for Chocolate.
>
>  Therefore, Chocolate = Carob
>
>  Carob is demonstrably period, also called Manna or Saint John's Bread
>  [for the early summertime ripening of the sweet pods].
>
>  Therefore, we can call Chocolate "Mock Saint John's Bread" and eat it
>  too. >>

and Brangwayna Morgan replied:

>The only place I have seen this claim made is in Fabulous Feasts.  Do we have
>any evidence for the use of Carob, St John's Bread , or Manna (or the
>equation of carob with the other two names) in the middle ages other than Fab
>Feasts?

The recipe for Byzantine murri has carob in it. Murri is a condiment 
used in period Islamic cooking, produced by a slow process of 
fermentation; Byzantine murri is a quick and cheap version which at 
least one period source warns you against, but which can be made in a 
home kitchen. It has a lot of strongly flavored stuff in it; recipe 
in the Miscellany.

Of course, since no one was making modern-type chocolate candy in 
period, no one was making fake chocolate candy out of carob either.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook (still a month behind the list, and feeling like 
the Red Queen)