[Sca-cooks] Re: chocolate

[Lonnie D. Harvel]

> Supposedly
> there are church records condemning the local Christains who went to
> "the wrong
> side of the tracks" for chocolat. The church looked at chocolat like our
> government looks at pot.

I think what you are looking for is the restrictive act issued by the
Society of Jesus in 1650 which barred the use of a chocolate drink by
Jesuits during periods of fasting. Since the sweetened chocolate drink has
some nutritional value, its extensive use by the monks was seen as a form
of "cheating".

I don't know of any other official sanction against chocolate by the
Church of the period. There were individual clerics who preached against
its use. Some even went as far to claim that the invigorating effect was a
result of demonic influences.  This  was never (to my knowledge), however,
a Church doctrine.

Pax,
Aoghann