[Sca-cooks] Research on Period Chocolate

[Susan Fox]

Oh Boy, a new project!  I am sending this to a dear friend who is a 
skilled translator of Spanish language entertainment from both sides of 
the ocean, and is also a devoted foodie.  Not SCA, but give us time.  
;-)  Maria, what do you make of this recipe?

Dame Selene Colfox aka Susan Fox
selene at earthlink.net

David Friedman wrote:
> Master  Raymond von dem Lowengrab recently posted to a West Kingdom 
> list, describing some work he was doing on a period description of 
> making a chocolate drink. I asked if he would like me to post it here, 
> and he said he would. For anyone who wants to correspond with him 
> directly, his email address is:
>
>  Raymond Tripp <lowengrab at gmail.com>
>
> Here's the relevant part of his original post:
>
> Would any of you Chocolate lovers in the group be interested in my 
> attempts to translate what is seeming to be a period discription of 
> ingredients and, from what I can tell [so far], at least a rough 
> description of the process for making the "Chocolate Drink" ?
> The source is from "Narraciones historicas"- Seminario de Cultura 
> Mexicana. Mexico, 1994. by Luis Castillo Ledon.
> One of the chapters in this work is specificly on "Chocolate", and 
> according to my co-workers/ translators/cultural advisors who provided 
> me with this rather obscure reference, this chapter goes rather in 
> depth about the history of Chocolate and it's place in Mexican history.
> For those who are interested in such small things as " Period 
> Sources", the section I'm working on is taken from Juan de Cardenas 
> "Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias" written in 1591.
> At this point I am only focusing on the actual passages pulled from 
> Cardenas instead of the whole chapter- this is for the sake of time 
> and my sanity as it's been almost 20 years since I took Spanish and I 
> barely squeeked by a passing grade. I am relying on the gracious 
> assistance of my co-workers [who are brothers], mentioned above, who 
> share a love of history and native foods from their region. Oh yea, 
> one of them has been a Chocolateer and candy maker before he joined my 
> current employment, and some of his insights have been enlightening.
> So, please bear in mind that the translation is essentally done "By 
> Committee" though any mistakes made will be my own. [If anyone is 
> interested in a copy of the whole chapter, let me know and I'll do my 
> best to get a copy to you- I'd love to see a translation, or even a 
> review, that didn't require my brain to occasionally short out....]
>
> And here is what he sent me for this list:
>
>  To get the ball rolling, here is, to the best of my understanding, 
> the excerpts from the source used by the author. Please note that I 
> have yet to figure out how to put accent marks over letters, so they 
> will be ommitted.
>  Pero mas que formula, lo anterior solo es una manera de preparar el 
> chocolate ya para servirse. No ha sido dable al cronista tener en sus 
> manos el libro del doctor Barrios, a que se refiere el padre Ximenez, 
> pero hojeando los Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias, 
> obra escrita por el doctor Juan de Cardenas en 1591, encuentra dos 
> largos capitulos sobre el mexicanisimo brebaje, en los que el autor 
> nos ofrece con complaciente prolijidad gastronomica, una excuisita 
> receta para preparar chocolate, y una disertacion sobre las diversas 
> maneras en que se estilaba tomarlo.
> [Prelude over, here's where we started working]
>  "En esta preciosa y medicinal bebida- anota el docto Cardenas- 
> entran, sin el cacao, especias que llaman de Castilla;  y otras que 
> aca llamamos de la tierra; las especias castellanas son, canela, 
> pimienta, anis, ajonjoli"; las indianas gueynacaztle [que los 
> espanoles llaman orejuela], sustancia "que se echa en el chocolate muy 
> sabia y acordadamente", por su buen olor, "pues con el da gracia 
> flagrancia y suavidad a esta bebida", y como toda medicina aromatica, 
> es cordial, "refuerza y conforta la virtud vital, ayudando a engendrar 
> espiritus de vida", y "da asi mesmo un muy gracioso sabor", flor de 
> mecasuchil, que tambien perfuma, y que calienta y consume las 
> "humidades flematicas", y conforta el higado, por lo que es la mejor 
> especia que entra en la composicion; tlixchil, "en nuestro romance 
> vainillas", cuyo buen olor compite "con el almizcle y ambar" es 
> cordial y amigo del corazon, y tiene "virtud de dar calor al estomago, 
> cocer los humores gruesos, que en el estan de ordinario", por lo que 
> "no se debe excusar"; finalmente, achiote, comparable al cardamomo, el 
> cual se echa en esta bebida, asi para darle un rojo y gracioso color, 
> como para dar sustento y engordar al que le bebe".
>  "Se debe alabar-agrega- las especias olorosas de esta India 
> occidental, que siendo calientes, confotativas y aromatacas, no nos 
> dan aquel excesivo calor que las que nos traen de la India oriental". 
> dichas espeias "jamas hacen dano a nadie, echandose mayormente poco de 
> cada cosa. suelen algunas personas, por sentirse frias de estomago o 
> de vientre, echar al chocolate unos chiles tostados y unos granos 
> mayores de culantro seco, llamados pimienta de la tierra"
>  recomienda Cardenas que todas las sustancias sean nuevas, excepto el 
> cacao que "Mientras mas anejo, mas aceitoso y mantecoso sera", y a 
> continuacion explica que las cantdades de ellas que deben usarse son, 
> para cada cien cacaos, media onza de cada especia, asi indigenas como 
> espanolas, los cuales se tostaran separadas del cacao, por necesitar 
> este mayor fuego, y que tales dosis pueden aumentarse o disminuirse a 
> voluntad, segun el gusto.
>  Needless to say, this man is the master of the run-on sentance.
>  I have held the translation to this point as the next paragraph 
> begins to describe the work/ observations of Antonio Colomenero de 
> Ledesma's Curioso tratado de la naturaleza y calidad del chocolate 
> published in Madrid in 1631- outside of our cut off point if 1600 is 
> to be accepted.
>  The clue, for me, that I might be on to something with this lay in 
> the first sentance: En esta.. "In this beautiful medicinal Drink-wrote 
> the Doctor Carenas- go without the cocao, the species they call 
> castillians; in others they call from the land.
>  Juan and Efram, my translators, made the folowing notes; "Go without 
> the cocao"- he's describing the preparation by separating the batches 
> of ingrediants from castillian and "others they call from the land" 
> being native spices.
>  According to Juan, the former chocolateer, this translation does 
> eventually describe, at least roughly, how to make the drink. But, the 
> problem he's having is that the source tends to describe and expound 
> upon the nature of various ingrediants '...consumes flematic 
> humours..." is one of my favorites so far, and with the archaic prose, 
> he sometimes pulls his hair.
>  like I've said before, as far as Spanish goes, I'm rather un-fluent, 
> so I'll trust these guys to givew me their best then throw it to the 
> wolves to chew on.
>  For the anthropology minded, Juan and Efram come from a small 
> town/village in central mexico that has pre-colonial roots, with 
> cooking traditions that have been passed down, mainly through the 
> women, for genrations. Juan remembers seeing his grandfather make, by 
> hand grinding, the cakes of corn, spices, and chocolate, over the 
> heated grindstone, back in the 50's. When my interest in the 
> historical aspects of chocolate became known to him, he has begun 
> talking with some of the "elders" in his family about their knoweldge 
> on preparing chocolate in it's various forms, and when he read 
> Mistress Juanna's recipe for chocolate, noted to me "I realized that 
> I've been drinknig this all my life !", abliet, without the orange 
> flowers.
>