![Xocolatada - Madrid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Xocolatada_-_Madrid.jpg)
The history of chocolate in Spain is part of the culinary history of
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
as understood since the 16th century, when the colonisation of the Americas began and the cocoa plant was discovered in regions of
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
, until the present. After the
conquest of the Aztec Empire
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the ev ...
, cocoa as a commodity travelled by boat from the port of New Spain to the Spanish coast. The first such voyage to Europe occurred at an unknown date in the 1520s. However it was only in the 17th century that regular trade began from the port of
Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
, opening a maritime trade route that would supply the new demand from Spain, and later from other European countries.
In contrast to other new culinary ingredients brought from
the Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, the acceptance and growth in popularity of chocolate in Spain was rapid, reaching its peak at the end of the 16th century.
[Domingo, Xavier (1992), El Sabor de España, Barcelona, Tusquets, p. 202.] Although chocolate was not immediately adopted by other European societies, it eventually made its way to becoming a high commodity. Once the Europeans realised the societal value of chocolate, they started to incorporate it more into their diet.
From the early stages, the cocoa was sweetened with
sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalk ...
, which the Spanish were the first to popularise in Europe. In
pre-Columbus America chocolate was flavoured with
peppers
Pepper or peppers may refer to:
Food and spice
* Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant
** Black pepper
* ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae
** Bell pepper
** Chili ...
and was a mixture of both bitter and spicy flavours. This made it an
acquired taste
An acquired taste is an appreciation for something unlikely to be enjoyed by a person who has not had substantial exposure to it. It is the opposite of innate taste, which is the appreciation for things that are enjoyable by most persons without ...
and limited its appeal to the Spanish conquistadors, who were soon encouraged to sweeten it with sugar brought from the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
in addition to heating it.
Over a 100-year period since its first appearance in the ports of
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
, chocolate became popular as a drink in Spain, where it was served to the Spanish monarchy. However, for a time the formula was unknown in the rest of Europe. Later, chocolate spread from Spain to the rest of Europe, with the first countries to adopt it being Italy and France.
The great popularity of the drink in Spanish society from that time until the 19th century is attested to in various reports written by travellers who visited the Iberian peninsula. It was said that "chocolate is to the Spanish what tea is to the English".
[Graciela Ascarrunz De Gilman; Marian Zwerling Sugano (1984), ''Horizontes culturales y literarios'', p. 63.] In this way chocolate was converted into a national symbol.
[Ángel Muro (1890), El Practicón, Madrid] The unusual fondness for this drink meant that coffee remained relatively unpopular in Spain compared to other European countries.
In Spain, chocolate was exclusively considered a refreshing drink, and it was rarely used in other ways—though there are older Spanish dishes that use cocoa. After the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
the custom declined in favour of coffee consumption. In modern Spain, traces of the history of the drink can be seen in the chocolate companies, the chocolate shops and museums. The Spanish also mixed their sugared chocolate drink with milk, just as coffee is mixed with milk. Other ways the Spanish served chocolate was in its natural candy (dulce) drop or “cluster” form which is naturally occurring due to its high cocoa butter content.
Pre-Columbian era
![Kakaw (Mayan word)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Kakaw_%28Mayan_word%29.png)
The
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
n origin of the cacao tree (to which
Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
gave the scientific name
Theobroma cacao
''Theobroma cacao'', also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. The largest pr ...
in 1753) is disputed by modern botanical historians
[Kenneth F. Kiple (2000), «Cacao», ''The Cambridge World History of food'', Cambridge University Press, Volume I, section III.e.] since there are different hypotheses about the region from which it comes. Thus, some theories point to the
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
region;
[Louis Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro (2009),''Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage'', Willey. ] however, it is estimated that the plant also grew in the wild in other parts of
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, including the plains of
the Orinoco Basin. It is very likely that the
Olmec
The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that ...
s knew the cacao plant, in 1000 BC and transmit its use and cultivation to
the Mayans,
[Bogin, B. (1997),''The evolution of human nutrition. The Anthropology of Medicine: From Culture to Method,''Romanucci-Ross, L., Moerman, D. E. & Tancredi, L. R eds., Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT, pp. 98-142.] who were the first to describe cocoa in their
hieroglyphics
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
. There is some link between the
blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...
of
human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...
and the intake of cocoa, and samples found in Mayan tombs strongly imply that the drink was common in the noble classes. The role played in religious ceremonies was explained by
Diego de Landa
Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. Many historians criticize his campaign against idolatry. In particular, he burned almost a ...
, in his book ''List of Yucatan things''.
As currency
The chronicles of the Spanish conquistadors contain numerous mentions of its use by the Aztecs as a form of
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general ...
, which used the Aztec
vigesimal system the use of which was widespread. There were specific names, such as the ''countles'' consisting of four cocoa beans, the ''xiquipil'' consisting of twenty ''countles'' and the "burden," which included three ''xiquipiles.'' In his ''Historia general y natural de las Indias'' (1535, expanded in 1851 from his previously unpublished papers),
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (August 14781557), commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish soldier, historian, writer, botanist and colonist. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few year ...
noted:
Cocoa was also valued in other contexts such as
religious ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, ...
s,
marital rituals or as
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
(alone or mixed with other plants) as well as being a nutritious food. The widely held belief that it was "a gift from the gods" gave it appeal in pre-Columbian societies as a symbol of economic well-being. Its use as a currency was mostly in the payment of taxes to the powerful.
The age of discovery
![Chocolaterie-nestlé-broc-fèves-cacao-torrefiées](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Chocolaterie-nestl%C3%A9-broc-f%C3%A8ves-cacao-torrefi%C3%A9es.jpg)
The discovery of new foods or preparation methods went through several stages of understanding. Firstly cocoa was understood as a food and later as a pleasant taste. The latter was only possible through adapting the food to flavours previously known. It is in these first encounters of the Spanish conquistadors with cocoa that we can see that the preparation stage was adapted, it was sweetened and flavoured with other spices such as
cinnamon and served warm. After that they had a better understanding of the value of chocolate.
[Rafael Montal Montesa (1999), El chocolate «Las semillas de oro», Government of Aragón] Those three simple changes distinguished the chocolate consumed by the Spanish colonisers from the chocolate consumed by the natives. The same pattern occurs in other foods enjoyed at the time by the natives and Spanish.
[John Germov, Lauren Williams (1999), ''A sociology of Food and Nutrition'', Oxford University Press.] although none of those had an acceptance and a global demand in proportion similar to that of chocolate.
Columbus' first encounter
The navigator
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, with the economic backing of the
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bot ...
, first reached the shores of the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
on 12 October 1492, initially believing that he had reached India. This voyage was carried out to expand markets by establishing new trade routes and therefore rival the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...
, which was already well established in Asia. Following the success of that first voyage to the New World, others were organised with the intention of exploring and creating new
trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...
s.
[Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe (1996), ''The true History of Chocolate'', Thames & Hudson.] On his fourth voyage, Columbus, in 1502, met an unexpected storm and was forced to temporarily land on 15 August on the
Bay Islands Bay Islands may refer to:
* Bay Islands Department, Honduras
* Southern Moreton Bay Islands, Queensland, Australia
See also
* Bay of Islands
* Bay of Isles
* Island Bay, Wellington
* Little Bay Islands
Little Bay Islands is a vacant town in ...
. In their first explorations of the area, Columbus' group came upon a boat of Mayan origin travelling from the
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula (, also , ; es, Península de Yucatán ) is a large peninsula in southeastern Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north ...
. The Spaniards were surprised by the large size of the vessel. Columbus detained the vessel and examined the cargo, which contained cocoa beans that he called ''almonds'' in his diary. However, he did not attach importance to these, and after this original inspection he let the boat proceed with its cargo.
In the later period from 1517 to 1519, the Spanish conquistadors
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo ( 1492 – 3 February 1584) was a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a soldier in the conquest of the Aztec Empire under Hernán Cortés and late in his life wrote an account of the events. As an experience ...
(who referred to the use of cocoa by Aztecs in his book ''
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España
''Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España'' (''The True History of the Conquest of New Spain'') is a first-person narrative written in 1568 by military adventurer, ''conquistador'', and colonist settler Bernal Díaz del Castillo ...
'') and
Hernán Cortés both tried the drink and found it to have both bitter and spicy tastes due to the use of
achiote
''Bixa orellana'', also known as achiote, is a shrub native to Central America. ''Bixa orellana'' is grown in many countries worldwide.
The tree is best known as the source of annatto, a natural orange-red condiment (also called or ) obtained ...
. On occasions
cornmeal and
hallucinogenic mushrooms were also added to the drink.
[Xavier Castro (2001), «Chocolate y Ayuno», in ''Ayunos y Yantares'', Madrid, chapter 3.] Thereafter the Spaniards knew that cocoa beans were considered
legal tender
Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
by the locals.
Fray Toribio de Benavente (nicknamed Motolinía) mentioned the existence of cocoa in his works such as ''Memorias'' or ''Libro de Cosas de la Nueva España o de los naturales de ella''.
Encounters in New Spain
After the conquest of Mexico, the Aztec emperor,
Montezuma, offered Hernán Cortés and his companions fifty jars of foaming chocolate. According to the account of
Francisco Cervantes de Salazar
Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (1514? – 1575) was a Spanish man of letters and rector of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in 1551.
He was born and raised in Toledo, Spain. He first attended Alejo Venegas’s Grammar S ...
, the great emperor had a stockpile of several thousand 'charges' (tens of thousands of cocoa "kernels").
The Italian
Girolamo Benzoni
Girolamo Benzoni (c. 1519—after 1572) was a Milanese merchant and adventurer who spent fifteen years in the New World. In 1565 he published an account of his travels, ''Historia del Mondo Nuovo'', which included vivid descriptions of Spanish cru ...
in his book ''La Historia del Mondo Nuovo'' (1565) wrote that "...chocolate seemed more like a drink for pigs than a drink to be consumed by humans," noting that he had never tasted it despite residing there for over a year.
Girolamo Benzoni
Girolamo Benzoni (c. 1519—after 1572) was a Milanese merchant and adventurer who spent fifteen years in the New World. In 1565 he published an account of his travels, ''Historia del Mondo Nuovo'', which included vivid descriptions of Spanish cru ...
(1565), ''La Historia del Mondo Nuovo'', Venice. José de Acosta
José de Acosta (1539 or 1540 in Medina del Campo, Spain – February 15, 1600 in Salamanca, Spain) was a sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. His deductions regarding the ill effects of crossing over the ...
also disparaged the drink, comparing the frothy foam capping chocolate to feces. Despite these caveats,
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (August 14781557), commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish soldier, historian, writer, botanist and colonist. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few year ...
characterised it as an interesting ingredient, while showing some reluctance to describe how some Indians, after drinking it, had stained their lips as if they had ingested human blood.
The perceptions of the Spaniards were changing, in part, due to their increasing reliance on native ingredients. The
tortilla
A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of M ...
s made with cornmeal or (
tamales
A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tamale ...
), heated without the use of fat did not appear to satisfy the tastes of the conquerors used to pork and culinary techniques based on frying in fat, or sauteed with liberal use of
olive oil or
bacon.
Foods popular in Spain at the time such as cheese were unknown to the inhabitants of the New World.
As the Spanish settlers began to run out the stocks they brought with them, they had to find substitute foods. They therefore began to plant vegetables, such as
chickpeas
The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram" or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are hi ...
,
cereals such as
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
and
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
s like
oranges
An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae (see list of plants known as orange); it primarily refers to ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'', which is also called sweet orange, to distinguish it from the related ''Citrus × ...
or
pear
Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the po ...
s. Additionally they introduced the cultivation of olives, grapes and sugar cane. The latter ingredient became important. From the end of the 16th century onwards, sugar cane began to be added to the cocoa paste, which led to greater acceptance of cocoa among the Spanish settlers.
During this settling in period, around the 1520s, the Spaniards had to get used to new foods and flavours while they attempted to adapt old world cultivation methods to the new climate. Equally, however, the new ingredients brought by the Spanish settlers such as wheat and chickpeas struggled to find acceptance among the native populations who preferred their own homegrown dishes.
Those Spaniards from humble economic backgrounds often married richer Aztecs, often as
concubines
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.
Concubi ...
. Thus, they tended to eat food influenced by
Aztec gastronomy. This hastened the spread of cocoa among both cultures.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo ( 1492 – 3 February 1584) was a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a soldier in the conquest of the Aztec Empire under Hernán Cortés and late in his life wrote an account of the events. As an experience ...
mentioned that in a
banquet held at the Plaza Grande in Mexico (built on the ruins of the Aztec capital) to celebrate peace between
Carlos I of Spain
Charles V, french: Charles Quint, it, Carlo V, nl, Karel V, ca, Carles V, la, Carolus V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain ( Castile and Aragon) fro ...
and
Francis I of France
Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin on ...
chocolate was served in golden tablets. The wide acceptance of cocoa by the Spanish conquistadors, especially the women, was also described by the
Jesuit José de Acosta
José de Acosta (1539 or 1540 in Medina del Campo, Spain – February 15, 1600 in Salamanca, Spain) was a sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. His deductions regarding the ill effects of crossing over the ...
in his book ''Historia natural y moral de las Indias'' (published in 1590).
Spanish acceptance of chocolate came about due to modifications made to the drink. For example, sugar was added, mirroring the native Mexican and Mayan practice of adding honey to cacao beverages. New World spices were replaced with similar Old World spices, in part for the sake of familiarity, but also out of practicality. The Madrid physician Colmenero de Ledesma recommended substituting the rose of Alexandria for ''mecaxochitl'' flower blossoms and black pepper for Mexican chilies, when necessary. Cacao beverages containing maize, such as ''atole'', gradually phased out due to the fact that maize-less chocolate lasted longer, making it more suitable for cross-Atlantic trips. While these changes sought only to approximate the existing flavors of chocolate, in turn internalizing Mesoamerican tastes in the Spanish, they were significant enough to break down their initial aversion to cocoa.
As a result, after the initial aversion to cocoa had disappeared, supplies were sent to Spain. The second major transformation of chocolate at the hands of the Spanish was in the serving method: the cocoa was heated until it became a liquid. This was in contrast to the natives of the New World, who generally drank it cold or at room temperature.
[Stephen T. Beckett (2008), ''The Science of Chocolate'', RSC Publishing, 2nd ed., p.6.] The third change was the addition of spices from the Old World like cinnamon, ground black pepper or aniseed.
Naming the new product
![Metate et mano](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Metate_et_mano.jpg)
The Aztec language,
Nahuatl, was difficult for the Spanish troops stationed in Mexico to pronounce. While there was substantial overlap between the phonologies of
Classical Nahuatl and the
Early Modern Spanish
Early Modern Spanish (also called ''classical Spanish'' or '' Golden Age Spanish'', especially in literary contexts) is the variant of Spanish used between the end of the fifteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century, marked by a serie ...
spoken by the conquistadores, Nahuatl
phonotactics
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
were quite different. Moreover, one of the few phonological differences, the presence of the phoneme
/tɬ/ in Nahuatl and usually written "tl", caused great difficulty because the suffix "-tl" indicated the common
lemma form for Nahuatl nouns. Spaniards commonly reduced the "-tl" suffix to /te/, written "te". Hernán Cortés' difficulties with the language was evident in the letters he sent, where he writes "Temistitan" instead of
Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
and the tribal god Huitzilopochtli as "Huichilobos." Coexistence between the two cultures led to the Spanish language borrowing certain Mesoamerican phrases or words such as
coyote or maiz.
Many dictionaries suggest that the word chocolate comes from the Nahuatl ''chocolatl'', based on an evolution from ''-tl'' to ''-te''; however, there are problems with this hypothesis. Firstly, Coe argues that the word ''chocolatl'' does not appear in Aztec cultural writings of the time.
Similarly, the word is not found in the work of
Alonso de Molina
Alonso de Molina (1513. or 1514.. – 1579 or 1585) was a Franciscan priest and grammarian, who wrote a well-known dictionary of the Nahuatl language published in 1571 and still used by scholars working on Nahuatl texts in the tradition of th ...
, a
lexicographer
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretica ...
of the time, who wrote a book about the grammar of the Aztec language in 1555. It is also absent from Bernardino de Sahagún's encyclopedia and from the ''
Huehuetlatolli'' ("The words of the ancients"), a guide to moral conduct.
[Lyle Campbell, Terrence Kaufman (1976), «A linguistic look at the Olmec», ''American Antiquity'', vol. 41, nº 1, pp. 80-86.] In all these works, the word ''cacahuatl'' (cocoa water) is used. In his periodic letters, Hernán Cortés refers to 'cocoa.' At an indeterminate time in the 16th century, the Spanish of New Spain began to use the word ''chocolatl.''
The Royal Family's physician Francisco Hernández de Córdoba already knew this name in the 1570s, describing chocolatl as a drink consisting of cocoa beans and ''pochotl,'' a type of tree seed, both ground to powder.
[Joseph del Olmo (1680), ''Relación histórica del Auto General de Fe que se celebró en Madrid este año de 1680'', Madrid] José de Acosta
José de Acosta (1539 or 1540 in Medina del Campo, Spain – February 15, 1600 in Salamanca, Spain) was a sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. His deductions regarding the ill effects of crossing over the ...
and his contemporaries also used the name ''chocolatl'' in
Nueva España
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...
and the
Yucatán
Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate mun ...
making the word a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
. But others have suggested that the word ''chocolatl'' came from ''xocoatl,'' where ''xoco'' means bitter and ''atl'' means water.
[Karen Dakin and Søren Wichmann (2000), «Cacao and Chocolat», ''Ancient Mesoamerica'', 11:1:55-75, ] Another possible explanation comes from the colonial habit of making hot cocoa,
with many Mayan dictionaries of the time explaining that "the drink called chocolate" comes from ''chacau haa'' (literally 'hot water') which is phonetically close to ''chocolatl''.
First deliveries to Spain
In 1520 the
caravel
The caravel (Portuguese: , ) is a small maneuverable sailing ship used in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave it speed and the capacity for sailing win ...
s began delivering Spanish cacao to Spain and the
pirates with a
letter of marque from England, perhaps due to ignorance of the new ingredient, burned and discarded the contents of the Spanish ships which they seized.
No one knows for certain when cocoa first arrived in Spain, however it was considered a valuable material in the mid-16th century. The value which the product had can be seen in the strength of the
Spanish galleon
Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wa ...
s which carried the first cacao seeds to Spanish ports to prevent their theft.
There is no evidence that Hernán Cortés himself brought any cacao back to Spain on his return trip, as when he met
Carlos I Carlos I may refer to:
*Carlos I of Spain (1500–1558), also Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire
*Carlos I of Portugal (1863–1908), King of Portugal
*Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I (;,
* ca, Joan Carles I,
* gl, Xoán Carlos I, ...
, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor in 1528, cacao was not listed among the gifts brought back from the New World. The first deliveries to Spain were made by small galleys, which took advantage of the "Chocolate wind", as the favourable North wind in the Gulf of Mexico was known.
The first documentary evidence of chocolate in Spain comes from a delegation of
Dominican friar
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
s led by Fray
Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
, who travelled to the Iberian Peninsula in 1544 to visit Prince
Philip, future Emperor Philip II.
[Augustine Estrada Monroy (1979),''El mundo kekchí de Vera-Paz,'', Guatemala, Ed Army, p. 195.] During the meeting, gifts of
sweetgum, corn, and
cocoa are documented. It also refers to a chocolate milkshake that was served, this being the first documented case of the presence of chocolate in Spain.
The Dominican friars' familiarity with this type of food may have facilitated the transmission of cocoa from the
monasteries
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...
of Mesoamerica to Spain. Studies show that, prior to the reception, Father Aguilar would be the first in Spain to prepare jars of chocolate for the
Abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...
of the Piedra Monastery, Don Antonio de Alvaro.
Other authors refer to the Benedictine monks as the first importers of chocolate in 1532. The first deliveries were brought by the Maria del Mar galley through the port of Cadiz and were delivered to the Convent of the Third Franciscans of Seville. A quote from the Benedictines of the time was: "Do not drink the cocoa, anyone but friar, sir or brave soldier." In 1585, an embassy of Japan, visiting the Emperor Philip II in Alicante, was impressed by the offer of chocolate made by the nearby convent of the Poor Clares of Veronica. From the beginning, Spanish priests were the chocolate experts who spread their recipe among congregations. In 1601, the confessor of the court in the city of Cordoba, Serven Serrietz, inserted small amounts of chocolate in vegetables.
He attempted to plant cocoa in the Iberian Peninsula but the result was a complete failure, leading to the realisation that cultivation was best in latitudes between 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south.
The expansion and the need to seek a favorable climate for growing new food meant that cocoa trees flourished in Fernando Poo (in Spanish Guinea) and from there spread across the African continent. At that time preparation of sweets and confectionery was largely in the hands of pharmacists who used chocolate in various secret recipes and pharmaceutical applications. The nutritional use of chocolate was debated in those early times, and possible medicinal uses of cocoa were investigated from the beginning: an example can be found in the Badianus Codex, written in 1552.
Chocolate and confectionery was served in Madrid in the 17th century, and locals in those establishments asked for the "drink that came from the Indies.'
[Manuel M. Martínez Llopis (1989), ''Historia de la Gastronomía de España'', Alianza Editorial, p. 256.] Reference to the public availability of chocolate is made by several visitors in the 18th century. In 1680 cocoa was served in combination with melted ice to the nobles present at the
auto-da-fé
An ''auto-da-fé'' ( ; from Portuguese , meaning 'act of faith'; es, auto de fe ) was the ritual of public penance carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexi ...
s.
The writer
Marcos Antonio Orellana makes reference to its popularity at the time in a brief rhyme:
![Chocolatière style empire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Chocolati%C3%A8re_style_empire.jpg)
The popularity of the drink among noble women was such that, not content with drinking it several times a day, they requested drinking it in church as well. This whim upset the bishops, who published a circular in 1861 banning chocolate consumption in churches during long sermons.
[Pegerto Saavedra (1992), ''A vida coitá en Galicia de 1550–1650'', ]Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = €228 million (2011)
, rector = Prof. Dr. Antonio López Díaz
, city = Santiago de Compostela
, state = Galicia
, country = Spain
, undergrad = 23,835
, postgrad = 1,716
, doctoral = 2,697
, ...
, p. 111. ''Chocolatadas'', held at the end of religious services, became popular.
The golden age of chocolate
By the early seventeenth century drinking chocolate began to be popular in Spain, and was first accepted by the upper classes. It gradually expanded in two directions: geographic and social. Other foods from The Americas were not so accepted in Spanish society of the time as cocoa. The remaining foodstuffs were relegated to botanical study situations, or incorporated in some new culinary preparations on exceptional occasions and with general reluctance.
However, chocolate was part of a number of seventeenth century palace rituals offered to visitors, as part of the "entertainment". This ritual was that the ladies of the Court offered their female visitors a dose of cocoa along with various sweets (cakes, sweetened bread, muffins and brioches) and a vase of snow. The chocolate was served to visitors who rested on cushions, surrounded by tapestries and the heat of braziers heat.
''Chocolatadas'', the social custom of drinking chocolate in the community, had made their first appearance in Spain.
During this century, two factors led to the spread of cocoa. The marriage of Spanish noblewomen to French royalty and the Jesuits providing chocolate recipes in various countries, such as Italy.
[Casati, E. y G. Ortona (1990), ''Il Cioccolato'', Boloña.] Demand for cocoa significantly increased in the mid-16th century and the product flowed into Spanish seaports from where it spread to the rest of Europe.
Acceptance by the Spanish ruling classes
New food and drink in this era was usually consumed first by the upper classes, before gradually making their way to the lower classes through imitation. Initially, the austere rulers of the
House of Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
were not fond of chocolate
Hernán Cortés mentioned chocolate to
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
in his letters from The Americas (the so-called Relationship Letters) and after that, he persuaded the emperor to try it for the first time in the city of Toledo. At the beginning of the 17th century, drinking chocolate was already fully accepted in the royal court, and its consumption was habitual in royal morning receptions. Soon after, chocolate was served in a similar way in all Spanish houses in large cities.
The English traveller Ellis Veryard, who travelled through Spain in 1701, wrote about the high reputation that chocolate enjoyed in Spain in his book ''An Account of Divers Choice Remarks'',
[Veryard, Ellis](_blank)
(1701), S. Smith and B. Walford, London, p. 273. and described how chocolate was made, painstakingly grinding cocoa in portable stone mills and mixing it with cinnamon, vanilla and a small amount of
annatto
Annatto ( or ) is an orange-red condiment and food coloring derived from the seeds of the achiote tree ('' Bixa orellana''), native to tropical America. It is often used to impart a yellow or orange color to foods, but sometimes also for its f ...
. In 1644, Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma published one of the first Spanish chocolate recipes which was standard in Spain and Europe at the end of the 16th century. Colmenero self-translated his work to English and it spread through Europe. Spanish doctors who were followers of the theory of the
four bodily humours (among them Colmenero) argued that chocolate had a "cold and dry" temperament and produced melancholy. One of the ingredients used in the Colmenero recipe is mecaxochitl (Piper amalgo), a relative of black pepper, and he indicated that, in the absence of this ingredient,
Paeonia broteri (a type of rose) could be used.
Spread from Spain to the rest of Europe
![La feria de Madrid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/La_feria_de_Madrid.jpg)
The way the chocolate was brought to Spanish ports shows that, during the 17th century, it was one of the most precious commodities brought from overseas.
[Martínez García, Consolación (2000), ''Drogas importadas desde Nueva España (1689-1720): estudio estadístico'', ]Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
, Universidad de Sevilla, Chapter: Productos alimenticios. In 1691 an attempt was made to restrict distribution and it soon met with the opposition of the majority of Andalusian merchants. Chocolate was brought to France by the Jesuits and after being promoted by queens of Spanish origin:
Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 un ...
(daughter of
Philip III of Spain
Philip III ( es, Felipe III; 14 April 1578 – 31 March 1621) was King of Spain. As Philip II, he was also King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621.
A member of the House of Habsburg, Phi ...
and wife of
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...
) and
Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Spain ( es, María Teresa de Austria; french: Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche; 10 September 1638 – 30 July 1683) was Queen of France from 1660 to 1683 as the wife of King Louis XIV. She was born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal a ...
(daughter of
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV ( es, Felipe, pt, Filipe; 8 April 160517 September 1665), also called the Planet King (Spanish: ''Rey Planeta''), was King of Spain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King of Portugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip is remembered ...
), who moved to France in 1660 to marry
Louis XIV of France
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of ...
''(the Sun King)''. As a result, in the 17th century, chocolate became fashionable in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
quotes this drink in his works in the 18th century.
[Voltaire, ''Monsieur le docteur Ralph'' (1759), '' Candide''.]
Sources
References
{{Chocolate
Chocolate industry
History of chocolate
Spanish cuisine