Note 13 — AND ADVANTAGES WHICH THEY CAN YIELD TO HIS MAJESTY CARLOS III

“In 1618, according to the testimony of Dr. Marradón, of Marchena, to one hundred cacao-beans must be added a pound and a half of sugar, two onzas of cinnamon, fourteen grains of Mexican pepper, a half-onza of cloves, and two reals’ weight of anise and annotto; and one might add almonds, nuts, and orange-flower water. Years afterward Dr. Colmenero of Ledesma modified this formula, making the paste in the proportion of one hundred cacao-beans, one-half libra of sugar, two granos of pepper, anise, cloves, Alexandrian [i.e., white] roses, logwood, cinnamon, almonds, nuts, and a sufficient quantity of annotto to give it color.”

Until the end of the eighteenth century chocolate was prepared mainly by hand-labor. “In the seventeenth century, the preparation of the chocolate was made by artisans, who received twelve reals and an azumbre [i.e., about half a gallon] of wine for preparing each day the portion of chocolate from sixteen libras of clear cacao. The chocolate, thus prepared and sold under the name of ‘health chocolate,’ often contained special ingredients, chosen on account of the fashion, or of the taste of the consumers; and if in those times great praise was given to the chocolate which contained aromatic essences—vanilla, amber, and orange—certainly not less famous on that account was the chocolate of Madrid with its doradilla [i.e., ceterach], that of Ávila with its pimentón [i.e., a large variety of pepper], and that of Pamplona with its pepper and ginger. Fray Manuel Ordoñez says, referring to the paste which we are considering, that ‘in the past century it was sold only in the apothecary shops, like physicians’ prescriptions, for our cure;’ and from this citation we may infer not only that chocolate was regarded as a special medicine, but that it was considered as a therapeutic agent, worthy of being kept by the pharmacists of the seventeenth century. Later, in the eighteenth century, the preparation of chocolate began to be made by the guild of spice-dealers, its ingredients being reduced to the cacao, cinnamon or vanilla, and sugar; and the custom became somewhat general of adding to the paste some biscuit-dough, in order to make it thicker when it was diluted with water. At the same time when the ‘health chocolate’ was sold in the spice-shops, a medicinal chocolate was prepared in the apothecary shops, in which the principal products of the pharmacopeia entered as ingredients. As the preparation of chocolate had become general in the convents, in attempting to compete with the spice-dealers the friars did not think of making it of better quality; but, in order to sell it more cheaply, they subtracted from cacao and cinnamon what they added in ingredients that were not always harmless for the parishioner’s health. In order that the importance of this adulteration may be estimated, it is sufficient to cite some of the additions most used, as wheat flour, rice flour; ground lentils, peas, beans, and maize; starch, potato starch, and dextrine; olive oil, sweet almond oil, yolk of egg, tallow of veal and mutton; storax, chestnut [flour], gum tragacanth; cinnabar, red oxide of mercury, red lead, carbonate of lime, etc.” The manufacture of chocolate has been conducted almost entirely by machinery during the past century, and has accordingly thrown out the majority of the artisans who made it by hand. (José del Carmenal, cited in Gräfenberg’s Spanisches Lesebuch, Frankfurt, 1899, pp. 7–11.) ↑