Cocoa and Chocolate | Page 5

specially for the
purpose (see page 6). Thomas Gage suggests that choco, choco, choco
is a vocal representation of the sound made by stirring chocolate. The
suffix atl means water. According to Mr. W.J. Gordon, we owe the
name of chocolate to a misprint. He states that Joseph Acosta, who
wrote as early as 1604 of chocolatl, was made by the printer to write
chocolaté, from which the English eliminated the accent, and the
French the final letter.
[Illustration: NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS ROASTING AND
GRINDING THE BEANS, AND MIXING THE CHOCOLATE IN A
JUG WITH A WHISK. (From Ogilvy's America, 1671)]

First Cacao in Europe.
The Spanish discoverers of the New World brought home to Spain
quantities of cacao, which the curious tasted. We may conclude that
they drank the preparation cold, as Montezuma did, hot chocolate being
a later invention. The new drink, eagerly sought by some, did not meet
with universal approval, and, as was natural, the most diverse opinions
existed as to the pleasantness and wholesomeness of the beverage when
it was first known. Thus Joseph Acosta (1604) wrote: "The chief use of
this cocoa is in a drincke which they call Chocholaté, whereof they
make great account, foolishly and without reason; for it is loathsome to
such as are not acquainted with it, having a skumme or frothe that is
very unpleasant to taste, if they be not well conceited thereof. Yet it is a
drincke very much esteemed among the Indians, whereof they feast
noble men as they passe through their country. The Spaniards, both
men and women, that are accustomed to the country are very greedy of
this chocholaté." It is not impossible that the English, with the defeat of
the Armada fresh in memory, were at first contemptuous of this
"Spanish" drink. Certain it is, that when British sea-rovers like Drake
and Frobisher, captured Spanish galleons on the high seas, and on
searching their holds for treasure, found bags of cacao, they flung them
overboard in scorn. In considering this scorn of cacao, shown alike by
British buccaneers and Dutch corsairs, together with the critical air of
Joseph Acosta, we should remember that the original chocolatl of the
Mexicans consisted of a mixture of maize and cacao with hot spices
like chillies, and contained no sugar. In this condition few inhabitants
of the temperate zone could relish it. It however only needed one thing,
the addition of sugar, and the introduction of this marked the beginning
of its European popularity. The Spaniards were the first to manufacture
and drink chocolate in any quantity. To this day they serve it in the old
style--thick as porridge and pungent with spices. They endeavoured to
keep secret the method of preparation, and, without success, to retain
the manufacture as a monopoly. Chocolate was introduced into Italy by
Carletti, who praised it and spread the method of its manufacture
abroad. The new drink was introduced by monks from Spain into
Germany and France, and when in 1660 Maria Theresa, Infanta of

Spain, married Louis XIV, she made chocolate well known at the Court
of France. She it was of whom a French historian wrote that Maria
Theresa had only two passions--the king and chocolate.
Chocolate was advocated by the learned physicians of those times as a
cure for many diseases, and it was stated that Cardinal Richelieu had
been cured of general atrophy by its use.
From France the use of chocolate spread into England, where it began
to be drunk as a luxury by the aristocracy about the time of the
Commonwealth. It must have made some progress in public favour by
1673, for in that year "a Lover of his Country" wrote in the Harleian
Miscellany demanding its prohibition (along with brandy, rum, and tea)
on the ground that this imported article did no good and hindered the
consumption of English-grown barley and wheat. New things appeal to
the imaginative, and the absence of authentic knowledge concerning
them allows free play to the imagination--so it happened that in the
early days, whilst many writers vied with one another in writing
glowing panegyrics on cacao, a few thought it an evil thing. Thus,
whilst it was praised by many for its "wonderful faculty of quenching
thirst, allaying hectic heats, of nourishing and fattening the body," it
was seriously condemned by others as an inflamer of the passions!

Chocolate Houses and Clubs.
"The drinking here of chocolate Can make a fool a sophie."
In the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, tea, coffee, and chocolate
were unknown save to travellers and savants, and the handmaidens of
the good queen drank beer with their breakfast. When Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson forgathered at the Mermaid Tavern, their winged words
passed over tankards of ale, but later other drinks became the usual