SC - chocolate

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Morgana Abbey wrote:
> 
> Rather than squawk about chocolate's timeline (and running headlong into
> THE perennial royal whim), why don't you simply make a Renaissance
> chocolate dish and bring it to the sideboard?  Tricking people is usually
> the easiest way to teach.
> 
> Morgana

For practical purposes, there's one Renaissance chocolate dish, that
being chocolate. The drink. In its native setting it is generally
unsweetened; some Spanish adaptations contain small amounts of sugar and
other flavorings Europeans were familiar with. The trouble is that many
people who make chocolate an issue in the SCA environment are actively
resisting the idea that fine, modern, Belgian (or wherever's) eating
chocolate seems not to have existed anywhere in the world in period. A
warming cup of chocolatl doesn't do it for many of them.  

I think Aztec, or even early Spanish, chocolate should probably be a
controlled substance, given the pharmacological effects it has on some
people ;  ).

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com