[Sca-cooks] Vanilla [was: Sweet chocolate, Modican chocolate (OOP -- maybe)]

[Christiane]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
>Sent: Aug 27, 2007 11:13 AM
>To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sweet chocolate, Modican chocolate (OOP -- maybe)
>
> > I should not say the basic recipe, but the basic technique. The 
>>Spanish got the technique for crushing the beans into paste with heated 
>>lava stones from the Aztecs; the addition of the sugar, cinnamon, 
>>vanilla, and other flavorings, of course, could only come when those 
>>ingredients were introduced by the Spanish.
>
>Vanilla is a new world food from that part of the Americas; it could not 
>have been introduced by the Spanish as they did not have it.

Thanks for correcting that. My mind had been on Madagascar being the major vanilla producer today. So the Spanish would have been familiar with Aztec chocolate drinks flavored with vanilla, or honey, or hot pepper, or maybe even all three. And the presence of vanilla in sweets is thanks to the Spanish as well ... Do you know, or does anyone know, how quickly did vanilla show up in recipes?

Gianotta