[Sca-cooks] No Italian Chocolate

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings.  Back in 1993/94 there were rumors of some Renaissance Italian
recipes using chocolate.  I was able to track down one of the folk who had
found a book with chocolate recipes and just recently Helewyse (Louise
Smithson, Midrealm) received an answer from the Florence Archives about
dating the source.  Viviana de Castelloza (Australia) sent me the recipes
which she found in _Cucina Fiorentina fra Medioevo e Rinascimento_ but she
couldn't prove the dates.  Helewyse inquired about dating the recipes from
the Carte Bardi II and was told: "In referecent to your letter regarding
the Bardi archives, second series A116, this actually has the signature
(proper name): Bardi archives, second series, 129 and is titled "A Telling
of varies recipes to make dishes sweet and perfumed."  From the inventory
this manuscript is taken from the 18th century."  Helewyse commented: "So
there is our answer.  While the Bardi archives do indeed start in the 15th
century the section she took those recipes from appears to be some time in
the 18th century.  At the earliest the recipes may have been used in the
17th .  So no chocolate in Italy in the 16th."

This doesn't necessarily negate chocolate being used as a beverage, since I
believe there is a reference to the Italian Church which ruled that priests
who drank chocolate were not breaking their fast before serving Mass.

So, Duke Cariadoc had written to me saying "I think you are being hasty in
assuming the recipes are both genuine and correctly dated without having
seen even the secondary source."  The recipes are genuine, but from a much
later period than the SCA's.  Helewyse's cursory examination of the _Cucina
Fiorentina..._ does not impress her with the author's "scholarly"
credentials.

Alys Katharine

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/