Hearth Interactive

How Chocolate Is Made and Drunk

Draft: this translation has not yet been checked against the original by a separate review.

Written
printed at London, 1648 (Gage lived in New Spain and Guatemala from 1625 to 1637)
Place
Chiapa and Guatemala
Language
English (Early Modern)
Kind of source
travel
Reading time
7 minutes
Difficulty
Challenging
Intensity
Low

MesoamericaFood, farming and hungerCooking and recipesTrade, markets and money

Versions

The edited translation, in simplified modern English. Bracketed words were added for clarity; [...] marks a cut. Tap a note number to read the note.

What Chocolate Is

Chocolate is used today not only all over the West Indies but also in Spain, Italy, and Flanders, with the approval of many learned doctors of medicine. Among them Antonio Colmenero of Ledesma1 (who once lived in the Indies) has written a learned and curious treatise on the nature and quality of this drink. So I thought fit to set down here something about it from my own experience over twelve years. This name chocolate is an Indian name. It is compounded from atte, as some say, or as others say atle, which in the Mexican language means water,2 and from the sound which the water (in which the chocolate is put) makes, as choco, choco, choco, when it is stirred in a cup with an instrument called a molinet, or molinillo,3 until it bubbles and rises into a froth. And as it is a compounded name there, so in English we may well call it a compounded or confectioned drink, in which are found many different ingredients, according to the different constitutions of the bodies of those who use it. But the chief ingredient (without which it cannot be made) is called cacao. It is a kind of nut or kernel bigger than a large almond. It grows on a tree called the cacao tree and ripens in a great husk, in which are found sometimes more and sometimes fewer cacaos: sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty, even forty and more.

What Goes into It

[...] As for the rest of the ingredients that make up this chocolate confection, there is great variety. Some put black pepper into it, which the physicians do not approve of, because it is so hot and dry,4 except for one who has a very cold liver. But commonly, instead of this pepper, they put in long red pepper, called chile, which, though it is hot in the mouth, is cool and moist in its working. It is further compounded with white sugar, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, almonds, hazelnuts, orejuela, bainilla, sapayoll,5 orange-flower water, some musk, and as much achiote6 as will make it look the color of a red brick. But how much of each of these should be put to a given quantity of cacao, the different constitutions of people's bodies must decide.

[...] All these ingredients are usually put into chocolate, and by some people more, according to their fancies. But the poorer sort of people, such as Blackamoors7 and Indians, commonly put nothing into it but cacao, achiote, maize, and a few chiles with a little aniseed.

How It Is Made

[...] Now for the making or compounding of this drink, I shall set down the method here. The cacao and the other ingredients must be beaten in a stone mortar, or (as the Indians do) ground on a broad stone which they call a metate,8 which is made only for that use. But first the ingredients are all to be dried, except the achiote. Take care that they can be beaten to powder, and keep stirring them so that they are not burnt or turn black; for if they are overdried, they will be bitter and lose their virtue. The cinnamon and the long red pepper are to be beaten first, with the aniseed, and then the cacao, which must be beaten little by little till it is all powdered; and in the beating it must be turned round, so that it mixes better. Every one of these ingredients must be beaten by itself, and then all put into the vessel where the cacao is, which you must stir together with a spoon. Then take out that paste and put it into the mortar, under which there must be a little fire after the confection is made. But if more fire is put under it than will just warm it, then the oily part will dry away. The achiote also must be put in during the beating, so that it may take the color better. All the ingredients must be sifted, except only the cacao, and if the dry shell is taken off the cacao, it will be all the better. When it is well beaten and incorporated (which will be known by its shortness),9 then some of the paste, which will be almost liquid, is taken up with a spoon (as is done in the Indies) and made into tablets, or else put into boxes without a spoon; and when it is cold it will be hard.

How It Is Drunk

[...] The ways of drinking it are various. One (the way most used in Mexico) is to take it hot with atole.10 You dissolve a tablet in hot water, and then stir and beat it with a molinet in the cup it is to be drunk from. When it is well stirred to a scum or froth, you fill the cup with hot atole and so drink it sip by sip.

[...] But the most ordinary way is to heat the water very hot, and then pour out half the cupful that you mean to drink. Put into it a tablet or two, or as much as will thicken the water reasonably, and then grind it well with the molinet. When it is well ground and has risen to a froth, fill the cup with hot water, and so drink it by sips (having sweetened it with sugar), and eat with it a little conserve, or maple bread,11 dipped into the chocolate.

There is yet another way to drink chocolate, which is cold. The Indians use it at feasts, to refresh themselves, and it is made in this manner. The chocolate (which is made with no ingredients, or very few) is dissolved in cold water with the molinet. Then they take off the scum or thick part, which rises in great quantity, especially when the cacao is older and more decayed. They lay the scum aside in a little dish by itself, and then put sugar into the part from which the scum was taken. Then they pour it from on high into the scum, and so drink it cold. And this drink is so cold that it does not agree with every stomach; for experience has shown that it does harm by causing pains in the stomach, especially to women.

Atole in the Markets

[...] The other drink which is much used in the Indies is called atole. I will say only a little about it, because I know it cannot be used here. This was the drink of the ancient Indians. It is a thick pap made of the flour of maize, with the husks taken off, which is windy and melancholy.12 It is commonly carried hot in pots by the Indian women to the markets, and there it is sold in cups. The Creole students,13 as we go to a tavern to drink a cup of wine, go together to the public markets and just as publicly buy and drink this atole by the measure. Sometimes it is seasoned with a little chile, or long pepper, and then it pleases them best. But the nuns and gentlewomen have learned a trick of making it with cinnamon, sweet waters, amber or musk, and plenty of sugar. Made this way it is held to be a very strong and nourishing drink, which the physicians prescribe for a weak body, as we do almond milk here. But of what England never knew nor tasted, I will say no more, but hurry my pen on to Guatemala, which has been my second patria.14

Notes

  1. Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, a Spanish doctor, whose Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate was printed in Madrid in 1631. back
  2. Atl is the Nahuatl word for water. Where the word chocolate came from is not certain. back
  3. A molinillo, a wooden stick with rings or knobs at the end, twirled between the palms to froth the drink. back
  4. Gage follows humoral medicine, in which every food was hot or cold, moist or dry, and could balance or upset the four humors, the body fluids that doctors believed had to stay in balance for health. back
  5. Bainilla is vanilla. Orejuela and sapayoll were other local flavorings. back
  6. Achiote (annatto), a red coloring made from the seeds of a tropical shrub. back
  7. Gage's word for Africans and people of African descent, many of them enslaved, in the Spanish colonies. back
  8. A grinding stone of volcanic rock, on which maize and cacao were ground with a stone roller. back
  9. Crumbliness: the paste is ready when it breaks easily. back
  10. A thick drink of maize flour cooked in water (Nahuatl atolli). Gage describes it at the end of the chapter. back
  11. The meaning is uncertain; probably a kind of sweet bread or biscuit. back
  12. In humoral medicine, windy foods caused gas, and melancholy ones bred black bile, the cold, dry humor. back
  13. Criollos, people of Spanish descent born in the Americas. back
  14. Homeland. back