Elliot Taylor

October 19, 2015

Chocolate

Depending on where you were in the world during the Age of Exploration, people had different conceptions of chocolate. To the natives of Central America, chocolate was a delicacy that possessed medicinal qualities. To the Spanish, chocolate was a delicacy but to others in Europe, chocolate was looked upon with disdain, which was evident in both Il Mattino by Giuseppe Parini and in Bacchus in Tuscany by Francesco Redi. In fact, the changing conception of chocolate by region is similar to how coffee was viewed across Europe.

Like coffee, chocolate started as something consumed by the upper classes, but gradually became consumed by all classes. In Bacchus in Tuscany, the narrator looks upon both coffee and chocolate with disgust. When he discusses coffee, he states that he would “sooner take to poison, /Than a single cup set eyes on/ Of that bitter and guilty stuff ye/ Talk of by the name of Coffee” (1825: 11) and when discussing chocolate, he states that chocolate is not a medicine made for him (1825: 11). For this Italian, neither coffee nor chocolate were seen as the delicacy that other cultures believed it possessed. In fact, in Il Mattino by Giuseppe Parini, there is a whole verse of dialogue where a lacquey presents a cup of chocolate to his master but does so with disapproval, believing that the Spanish expedition to the New World brought unnecessary loss of life to the natives of the New World; he criticizes his master when he says “[Cortez and Pizarro] wrecked two kingdoms to refresh thy palate” (line 157). To many Italians, wine was the preferred drink, not coffee or chocolate.

Unlike the Italians, the Spanish considered it a delicacy as well as medicine. According to Coe and Coe, authors of The True History of Chocolate, “chocolate not only reigned supreme in the courts of Spain’s Habsburg rulers all through the 17^th century, but it radiated out to those great public displays and pageants that were so typical of Baroque Spain” (135). The Spanish revered chocolate in the same way Italians revered wine. Similar to coffee in Turkey, chocolate gradually became attainable to the commoners, but not right away. Additionally, Spanish physicians considered chocolate medicinal (134). Although we now know that chocolate does not have any medicinal value whatsoever, the Spanish, like the natives of Central America, believed that it had exceptional properties.

The conception of chocolate in Spain and Italy present two opposing conceptions of chocolate. Although not all Italians opposed the drink– Cosimo de Medici loved it (135)– most Italians did not understand Spain’s fascination with the drink. We saw Italian opposition toward chocolate in both Il Mattino and Bacchus in Tuscany.  

Reflection on the Field Trip to the Uffizi Gallery

            Food was readily apparent in many of the paintings and even some statues in the Uffizi Gallery. I saw grapes, bread, apples, citrus fruits, plums, carrots, garlic, and potatoes. Of these products, apples, grapes, plums, garlic, carrots, and bread were from the Old World while tomatoes and potatoes were from the New World.

            In Still Life with Fruit and Insects by Rachel Ruysch, we see a wide variety of fruits such as grapes, apples, and plums as well as insects such as butterflies, snails, and flies. The description beneath the painting states that Ruysch’s piece is likely an allegory for autumn, which is entirely possible because all of the fruits depicted in the painting can be harvested in the fall. Ruysch is Dutch and spent her life living in the Netherlands. Interestingly, the three fruits depicted in the painting were extremely hard to find during Ruysch’s lifetime, suggesting that Ruysch must have been wealthy to afford them.