Reflection 2 and Close Reading

Dalila Sanchez

20/03/15

Making the Mediterranean

Prof. Villa

Reflection 2

Learning about chocolate this week was very interesting. When I think of chocolate, I think of a sweet, decadent, luxurious treat that I reward myself with. However, chocolate has not always been a sweet delight, Its history dates back to Mesoamerica where its purpose for consumption was for spiritual rituals. The Mayans and the Aztecs used chocolate to make a drink known as xocolatl, meaning bitter water in Nahuatl. In Mesoamerica, chocolate had a profound meaning for the people at the time worshipping it in religious ceremonies. Throughout the years, historians have developed different theories to explain how chocolate was introduced to European Countries. However, similar to all the essential crops we can’t live without today chocolate’s consumption started off with the rich and powerful people at the time. Like sugar, coffee, tomatoes, and tea, chocolate was a delicacy only the nobility and royalty were fortunate to easily have access to.  For the Catholic people in Europe, chocolate was very popularly consumed for lent. This was the case because it was not considered a solid food and people took advantage of this and drank it as a liquid during the fasting period. 

Chocolate did not always have that sweet and rich taste we have come to love. Cacao seeds do not have a sweet flavor at all, in fact they actually have an intense bitter taste and they must be fermented to bring out the flavor in them. Back when it was first a novelty among Europeans, it was mainly used for its medicinal properties. In Baroque Europe, the Galenic Humoralism was a system of medicine adopted by the greek and roman philosophers and physicians that detailed the makeup and workings of the human body. Chocolate was appropriated by this system because food and medicine were very close entities. This definitely makes sense considering chocolate is full of antioxidants and can help live a healthier lifestyle. Of course, this is only true if we strip away all the sugariness that is added in today’s chocolate. 

After experimenting with it by adding other known foodstuffs like sugar and cinnamon, thats when chocolate started to be appreciated for its sweet flavor. Adding sugar, specifically, made chocolate even more popular making it a global product. It wasn’t until the 19th century when chocolate turned into a bar form. Also, Swiss people were the first make milk changing the chocolate flavor to what we know today. What was once a product for the rich it became a product that was often given to children due to its sweetened taste. 

There was a time where chocolate and coffee were highly compared and valued for its specific effects it had on the people that consumed them. Coffee, known for its caffeine, was very popular for the middle class because they tended to live a fast pace life since they had to work to make a living.  As for chocolate, its effects are known to cause realization due to its serotonin contents. This is why it was a drink that was still associated with the rich because they had the luxury to relax. As I walk the streets of Florence in particular, I notice chocolate almost everywhere I go. I can’t help to find it in breakfast pastries, deserts, cakes, cookies, and of course, gelato. This proves the prominent significance chocolate has on the world and specifically in Italy. 

 Painting Close reading

In his painting, Supper at Emmaus, Pontormo captures the scene of when now resurrected Jesus Christ returns during a meal two of his disciples were sharing. In the painting, I see Christ breaking the bread as he did in the last supper. When Jesus takes the loaf of bread and breaks it, it symbolizes how he gave his body to his people and the remembrance that of the sacrifice he made for them. Early day Christians seem to always come together and share a meal but the breaking of the bread has a very significant value in the Catholic Church. It also symbolizes the sharing with one another. Painters like Jacopo Pontormo focused on painting religious images rather than still-life such as paintings that just incorporate food. They believed that by painting these religious figures they would be saved for all their sins. It wasn’t until the renaissances period, where people started focusing on the beauty of life and their surroundings. As a result of this we start seeing more still-life paintings. This makes a lot of sense when looking back at the artwork in the Uffizi Gallery.