[Sca-cooks] Research on Period Chocolate

[David Friedman]

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.

-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com