[Sca-cooks] Pepper in chocolates

[Stefan li Rous]

Suey asked:
<<<    Does that mean that we have from Aztecs to the Mapuches (Chilean
native Indians) adding pepper to chocolate? Do we have chocolate with
pepper in the northern hemisphere too? It sounds really odd to me.>>>

The short answer is, yes. The earliest chocolate recipes, from the  
native Americans, include peppers. I'm not sure why you consider this  
any more unusual in the northern hemisphere than the south. I think  
the Europeans first found chocolate being used in Mexico in the  
northern hemisphere. I'm sure that Bear or others can give a better  
overall history.

You find a number of early chocolate recipes in this file, and  
although the file isn't arranged chronologically, you can gradually  
see the peppers disappearing and sugar being added by the Europeans.  
Of course chocolate was a drink until the process for solidifying it  
was created in the 18th? century.

chocolate-msg    (116K)  6/11/06    History and description of early  
chocolate.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/chocolate-msg.html

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****