Weekly Reading Response 2

           Chocolate is one of the most popular treats in today’s world. We gladly put it in desserts, flavor our coffee with it, or eat it plain in a variety of flavors ranging from orange peel to bacon. It is also now associated with love and romance, like the rose, and given as a gift. New studies are even showing that it can increase serotonin levels and make the consumer happier. It permeates through our food environment today, and it is hard to imagine a world without it. Like sugar and the tomato, however, there is a long history behind chocolate’s rise to fame that we rarely consider.

            Also like sugar and the tomato, chocolate’s beginnings are in the New World, where it was discovered by explorers and brought back to the old world. Mesoamericans used chocolate as part of their spiritual rituals and it was often accompanied by hallucinogenics like mushrooms.  In the True History of Chocolate article, it states that the Spaniards adopted it from the natives, stripped it of its spiritual meaning, changing it into a medicine and adopting it into their four-humor system (Coe p. 126). While the exact time of its introduction into Spain is speculative, the article goes on to say that the first documented evidence for its appearance in Spain was in 1544 when a delegation of Mayan nobles and Dominican friars visited Prince Philip in Spain, bringing chocolate with them (Coe p. 129); regardless of the somewhat vague time of its introduction, we know that it was “acclimatized” in the Spanish court during the first half of the 17^th century (Coe p. 131).

            Chocolate’s introduction in Italy is about as ambiguous as its introduction in Spain. It is speculated that “chocolate could well have been disseminated to central and northern Italy through the international religious networks of monasteries, convents, and priestly orders that now linked Europe with Latin America” most likely through Jesuits (Coe p. 140), and it is later said that 1668 is when it was introduced to Florentines. The difference now being that chocolate in Italy was commonly made with “perfume-laden flavors” like amber, jasmine, and musk (Coe p. 144-145). Cioccolato di Modica, a popular brand of Italian chocolate, sells a variety of flavors today. In class we tasted chocolate, vanilla, sea salt, etc., and after a quick stop into chocolate and tea a shop in Palazzo Pitti, I saw so many more flavors like lemon to black pepper.

In later years after its introduction, we see many literary works mentioning chocolate. In “Mine Hostess” there is a Knight and a man named Marquis, who drinks the last of the Knight’s chocolate and borrows money from him. The Knight is more upset at the fact that he drank the last of his chocolate rather than the prospect of not having his money repaid (Act 1, scenes 13 and 14), glorifying chocolate’s importance. In “The Day”, Parini writes about a young man’s most important choice of the day: what to drink, chocolate or coffee. Parini then goes on to speak of the implications behind chocolate in the European diet, how blood was spilled and two kingdoms were wrecked in the Americas just to “refresh thy palate” (lines 144-157). In “Bacchus in Tuscany”, while chocolate is mentioned, it is brief and not so positive—“cups of chocolate, aye, or tea, are not medicines made for me” (p. 11) and goes on to praise wine instead of “non-classical drinks” like chocolate and coffee and tea, which is not surprising for a Tuscan work. Chocolate not only has a literary context but a religious one as well—the debate over it being a food or a drink caused controversy in the church, some arguing it cannot be consumed during fasting periods (Coe p. 147-148).

If I eat candy, 99% of the time it is chocolate. I eat it all the time (Toblerone is my favorite), and I never considered its origins and history until these lectures and readings. It takes many forms, from a drink to bars to a spread like Nutella, and is overall one of the most popular food items today. Once it was adopted from ancient native populations and appropriated into the New World (like sugar and tomatoes) it rose from humble beginnings to a monumental food industry with cultural, ethical, and environmental implications. The food of romance, decadence, recreation, and so on, it was once called “the food of the gods”, and judging by its unshaken popularity, it may as well still be called by that name.