[Sca-cooks] Research on Period Chocolate

Tue Mar 10 04:40:54 PDT 2009

I found the most wonderful chocolate the other day- or I should say,
R&M found it for me at the local co op. It's called Chocolate
Mexicano, by Taza Chocolate (out of Massachusetts, btw) and it's
organic Dominican cacao beans, organic cane sugar, and dried guajillo
chiles. The cacao is stone ground- I'm wondering if this might be akin
to the drink mentioned here. This chocolate can be eaten as candy, but
is also supposed to be dropped into hot water and served as a
beverage. Perhaps with a bit of corn meal, it might be equivalent to
the chocolate beverage referenced?

I love the stuff- if I never had access to any other chocolate, I'd be
content.  Unfortunately, at $5 per 2.7 oz (77 g ) package, Hershey's
will still get my business ;-)

Website is www.tazachocolae.com if anyone wants to check it out.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:46 AM, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> 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.
>
> --
> David/Cariadoc
> www.daviddfriedman.com
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Saint Phlip

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