Chapter · Spain · At the table
Money you could drink
Chocolate before it was a pleasure
Two books, 1590 and 1631, follow cacao from the bean used as coin to the Madrid cup. This path reads what they say about taste, price, and the arguments it took to get Europe to drink this.
Context first
A lesson to read before the others, to set the scene.
- The place
- The era
- The people
Money you could drinkBefore it was a drink anyone loved, cacao was a currency: five beans for one thing, a hundred for another, and above a hundred thousand loads destroyed by a pirate in a single port.9 min
The lessons in this chapter
- 1A froth very unpleasant to tasteThe first European to describe chocolate finds it loathsome and thinks great account is made of it without reason. The same page says the settled Spaniards crave it: taste is learned.10 min
- 2Seven hundred cacaosSeven hundred beans counted out, fourteen peppers, a stone made for that one job, and a clause allowing you to replace what you lack. That clause is how a Mexican recipe became Spanish.10 min
- 3Two men shaking handsIn 1631 a physician obtains a royal licence to defend chocolate against its accusers. His proof is an analogy of clasped hands, his dosage five or six ounces, and that was enough.10 min
How these lessons are written
Each lesson starts from first-hand sources: Wikisource, Gallica, Persée, archives, museums and institutes. A fact without a source does not get written, and every lesson lists its own as direct links.
The rhythm
A lesson is five minutes of cards and four questions. Those questions then come back the next day, then at 3, 7, 21 and 60 days, and that return is what makes it stick. One a day is enough, and you can do several in a row.