Happy Valentine's Day!
Today being a special Wednesday, hopefully each of the Wenches will find time to stop by to wish you all Saint Valentine's Greetings (as this little Victorian munchkin is doing).
Since this tends to be a chocolate holiday--well hey, any day is a chocolate holiday but it's always nice to have a legitimate excuse--it's a good time to talk about chocolate. And since I'm in deadline mode this week, it's also a good time to recycle my blog on history of chocolate from a few months ago ... enjoy!
My Sarah Gabriel book, KEEPING KATE, involves lots of chocolate. Alec Fraser's family runs a chocolate shoppe in Edinburgh, and he's something of an expert in the family biz...but at the time, he's a captain in the Highland Watch, and is assigned to bring a spy to Edinburgh to face trial. He ends up chasing Kate MacCarran, sometime spy and accused thief, all over part of the Highlands, because she has a radically different idea about where she should go, and it's not to Edinburgh in chains. Finally he drags her unrepentant arse to Edinburgh to face a Judge of the Session Court for her espionage crimes. By that time, natch, Alec is fiercely attracted to the girl, and she to him, and jail and a hanging is just not something either one of them want to think about...
But what what does that have to do with chocolate? Oooooh lots. Yummm...chocolate is all through the story.... hot chocolate, spiced chocolate, hot chocolate with hot peppers (yes that's right), hot chocolate with cream, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon -- hold the hot peppers (really I'm not kidding). Oh, and chocolate-dipped liver (what can I say, it's 18th c. experimental cuisine). There's also an uncle in the story who's experimenting with forms of hardened chocolate for eating, but just can't get the formula right....
Chocolate drink was extremely popular by this time (18th century), and "chocolate houses" had popped up all over England and Scotland. It was imported in solid logs that were serrated to be broken easily--this stuff was bitter and powerful, and had to be melted and mixed with water, milk, sugar, and a variety of other ingredients to create hot drinks. Originally the Mayans and Aztecs drank chocolate by the time the Spaniards came upon them -- the South American natives would mash the beans and drink the stuff as a paste, full bitter, mixed with chili peppers and liquidated just enough to choke it down. Xocolatl, they called it. The Spaniards called it horrifying, a tortuous concoction, but in ritual ceremonies and at social events they had to drink it to be polite, and probably to prove their manliness.
But the Spaniards had a brilliant idea: mix the stuff with sugar and milk and heat it--suddenly it was good stuff. They started importing it to Spain and Portugal, and by the 16th century it had caught on fast. In Spain they still drank it laced with chili peppers (one cannot fathom why), or with cinnamon. Even today, hot chocolate with cinnamon is called Mexican or Spanish chocolate. It was mixed in silver pots, sometimes ceramic, and stirred with a wooden stick until it was frothy -- a technique learned from the Aztecs, who often drank the froth and left the rest. In Europe, the foam was regarded as the best of the drink, the frothier the better.
"Eating" chocolate, shaped into bars, was not fully developed until the 19th century (Fry's and Cadbury's among the first to do so), though in the 18th century they were experimenting (just like Alec Fraser's uncle) with forms of chocolate other than for drinking.
Hence the failed experiment, Liver Dipped in Chocolate....
Today we understand chocolate better--its natural neurotransmitters and psychoactive chemicals, its endorphins--chocolate contains serotonin and tryptophan--make us feel better. An urge for chocolate is sometimes an urge to medicate or adjust the brain chemistry, and lately chocolate (especially the dark kind, closer to its original cacao form) has been shown to be beneficial for heart and circulation too. Some experts recommend an ounce or two a day. What a hardship! So next time you're craving a little chocolate, remember--it's very healthy for you in small amounts! Go dig out that special chocolate bar you've squirreled away, or sit down with a steaming cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon (and pepper for the brave ones), and pick up a good book to enjoy while you're at it. Maybe something by one of the Wenches...(and if that chocolate craving is really strong, try KEEPING KATE...).
Wishing each of you a wonderful, fun Valentine's Day filled with something special for everyone -- be it chocolate, flowers, gifts, kind thoughts, warm hugs, or loving words -- you deserve it!
~Susan Sarah