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Cocoa in Europe

A Timeline of Pre-1600 Cocoa.

It's a very narrow window.

1502

For the first chocolate seen by a European, we go to Christopher Columbus.

“When Christopher Columbus encountered a large Maya trading Canoe in 1502 he knew he had stumbled upon something of value. Some of the Maya traders dropped almond-like objects and began to furiously scramble to pick them up 'as if their eyes had fallen out of their heads.' These curious beans were known in Mayan as ka-ka-wa, which the Aztecs changed to cacao and the Spanish eventually corrupted into chocolate.”

-The World That Trade Created, Pg. 82

1527

From: A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat 1987, Translated by Anthea Bell 1992, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA we have:

"After Cortez had gone home in 1527 he always kept a full chocolate-pot on his desk."

...and...

"The first concern of the missionary nuns in Central America was to use their culinary gifts to convert chocolate to Christianity. They thought, correctly, that it was diabolical only because of the spices and flavorings added to it. They replaced them with vanilla, sugar and cream, and the result was delicious."

Instant cocoa is not the late invention many would have us believe. While the candy bar as we know it was a long way off yet, the Spanish learned"the manufacture of the finished beverage from a wafer or tablet of ground cacao to which hot water and sugar could be added" from the natives.

- The True History of Chocolate

cocoatree

The Spanish changed the way Cocoa was drunk. The Aztecs had taken it cold with chili peppers and ear flower mixed in. The Spanish "insisted on taking chocolate hot rather than cold or at room temperature". This custom may have been taken from the Maya from whom chocolate was first obtained." Secondly, it “came to be regularly sweetened with cane sugar" and "cinnamon, anise seed and black pepper" were substituted for native spice.

- The True History of Chocolate

“In early sixteenth century Spain, chocolate was mixed with water, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla.”

-The World That Trade Created, pg. 83

1528

From: Chocolate Fads, Folklore and Fantasies - 1000+ Chunks of Chocolate Information ,

"By 1528 he (Cortez) and his Conquistadores introduced the Mexican chocolate to the royal court of King Charles V. The official report was this: 'Un taza de ester preciosa brehaje peremete un hombre de andar an dia entero sin tomar alimento,' which freely translated means that a cup of chocolate each day provided great energy."

1538

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, says that in 1538 at a banquet in the Great Plaza of Mexico City, Spanish ladies were "served chocolate in golden goblets".

“Ascetic priests were the first to popularize chocolate in Spain and neighboring countries. Chocolate was considered a Catholic drink just as coffee was first a Muslim drink and then a Protestant beverage. The Jesuits in particular were so taken with chocolate that they became involved in cacao production. Indeed, they were denounced by some secular competitors for trying to monopolize the trade.”

-The World That Trade Created, pg. 83

1544

"...in 1544 the Dominican friars took a delegation of Maya nobles to visit Prince Philip in Spain.....They....brought to court receptacles of beaten chocolate; as far as we can tell, this marked the debut of chocolate in the Old World"

The original documentation of the 1544 interview was Augustin Monroy Estrada's El Mundo k'ekchi' de la Vera-Paz 1979, Guatemala City, which, unfortunately, I was unable to find in an English translation. This quote is from the Coes' The True History of Chocolate.

1585

From A History of Food:

"In 1585 the fame of Moctezuma's brew had spread so far through Europe that the first cargo to reach land from Vera Cruz was snapped up at once, despite the high price."

And in a further note,

"...it was not until 1585 that the first official shipment of the beans reached Seville from Veracruz."

- The True History of Chocolate

1590

It may be that chocolate drinking was originally more favored by women than men. The Jesuit Jose' de Acosta in 1590, says that (in Mexico) "...Spanish men-and even more the Spanish women-are addicted to the black chocolate."

1594

From: Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat we have:

"Although he had been among the first to be informed of the discovery, Pope Clement VII, formerly Giulio de Medici, could not actually drink chocolate at his coronation in 1523, for all he had was the enthusiatic description in Latin of Father Petrus de Angleria, who said it made his mouth water and soothed the soul: 'It is not only a delicious drink, but a useful form of money which permits no speculation, since it cannot be kept very long.'

Pope Clement VIII did drink a cup of cocoa in 1594; it was given him by the Florentine Father Francesco Carlati, just back from America, but he was the eleventh Pope in line from Giulio de Medici, and it was his task to resolve the grave question of whether or not drinking chocolate broke the fast."

(He decided it didn't.)

Conclusion:

Although it was taken cold with peppers in the Americas, Cocoa was quickly modified to hot with sugar, cinnamon and other european spices, within our time range. For enjoying cocoa, you really should be an Italian, or preferably Spanish personna, (or visitor) in the 1500's, but cocoa does meet the criteria of being enjoyed in Europe prior to 1600!

Bibliography

Jose' de Acosta in Natural and Moral History , 1590;

Augustin Monroy Estrada's El Mundo k'ekchi' de la Vera-Paz1979, Guatemala City;

and Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, translated and edited by Alfred P. Maudslay, 5 volumes, London: Hakluyt Society, and are all quoted by the Coes in The True History of Chocolate

The True History of Chocolateby Sophie and Michael Coe, 1996, Thames and Hudson, London

A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat 1987, Translated by Anthea Bell 1992, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA

Chocolate Fads, Folklore and Fantasies - 1000+ Chunks of Chocolate Information , by Linda K. Fuller, PhD, 1994, Harrington Park Press