[Sca-cooks] Re: Chocolate Drink for Gunther

[johnna holloway]

Some of you might remember that I was hunting up images of chocolate 
pots last spring, so I thought that this was an interesting exchange.
Since I know Gwenhwyvar, I contacted her for a response to the points 
that Phlip brought up. Gunther, you might hunt up those e-mails from 
April for pictures of chocolate pots for serving your hot chocolate from---

Johnnae llyn Lewis
only 100 or e-mails to go in the backlog

>
>Sounds like it might be tasty, but probably not period. Keep in mind, that
>the European Honey Bee arrived from Europe- until it and sugar cane arrived,
>there was very little available to be used for sweetening in the New World.
>Some ants and certain wasps made a honey, but it apparently didn't travel
>well, and was limited to the areas where these insects could be found. Also,
>aren't both cinnamon/cassia and nutmeg old World? Yeah, most of us know
>this, but I'd hate to see another modern recipe grandfathered in because
>Alys mentioned it, without saying whether it was period or not ;-)
>
>In the meantime, does anyone have a recipe for the chocolatl made with hot
>peppers?
>
>Saint Phlip,
>CoDoLDS
>
---------------------------
I'd love to respond. I never said the cinnamon or nutmeg were used in
the AZTEC drink. Those are both Old World spices. What I DID say was
that in an attempt to duplicate the taste of a flower found in
Central Mexico, I added Old World spices because there were several
sources that claimed the flower tasted like these spices. Also in
modern MEXICAN chocolate (what is sold now in Mexico) cinnamon is
added. As for honey, the Aztec's got their honey from a native honey
wasp. I have a very nice scientific study from a professional journal
on this if he is interested.

I now use a non-Dutch processed cocoa (it's just ground and dried
cocoa beans) that has a much higher fat content. I also don't usually
put the spice in as indicated by the actual recipe. No I don't have a
recipe for the one that had chili's in it, though I do have several
descriptions of it.

-TH Baroness Gwenhwyvar fitz Herbert