It has been a slow start of the year and the procrastination has been in full swing. Though to be fair I am always like this in the middle of summer. The heat simply doesn’t agree with me. So I though to get me into the land of productivity I should do some research on something that make my heart sing. No, in this case I am not talking about wine nor cheese, I am talking about chocolate.

While there are a lot of interesting rabbit holes to go down when it comes to chocolate, I decided to ease myself into the topic and look at some of 18th century European chocolate recipes outside of the hot drink variety. However before I do that, I think it is a good idea to learn how chocolate was made in the 18th century and what you should expect had you gone to the shops to purchase it back then.

Engravings by Jean Baptiste Labat. Left: Cacaotier ou Cacoyer. Right: Cosse de Cacao d'environ le tiers de sa gran.

Chocolate is made from seeds of the cacao trees. Their official botanical genus name is Theobrama meaning “food of the gods“ and, if you ask me, a fitting one at that. To make something that resembles what we would recognise as chocolate involves a complex process or fermenting, drying, roasting and milling the seeds.

First is the harvesting and fermenting the seeds. Once you have collected and opened the cacao pods, the beans and the surrounding pulp are taken out and gathered together to start the fermentation process. Essentially fermentation is there to help generate precursors of the chocolate flavour by allowing bacteria to grow (yeast→ lactic acid → acetic acid). It is a highly skilled process that is done in the same farm where the trees are grown. The quality depends on the knowledge, resources and, if we are honest, the work ethic of the farmers, which is why it can vary so much. According to Harold McGee the whole fermentation process can last anywhere between 2 - 8 days, however from the research I did that number is always on the higher end.

Once the fermentation has been completed the next step is drying the beans. This again can take several days. It is important to do it slowly and with care as this will impact the taste of the chocolate. If not done properly not only will the flavours be unpleasant but also unwanted bacteria and mould will start to grow. However if the beans are dried to the proper moisture level, they become resistant to further bacterial growth. At this point the beans are cleaned, packed and shipped.

Below I have included a few short videos on there first few steps in the chocolate journey. Here you can see processes in more detail and learn about the wonderful farmers that grow our food.

Diderot, Denis, *Supplément à l'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1765.* Plate V. Confectioner, chocolate and cheese moulds. fig 5 - 7 are moulds, where frozen “cheeses“ (frozen sorbets) were set in various shapes.

The image above is a plate from the Diderots encyclopaedia of a confectioner where you can see the process and equipment required to actually make the chocolate. Essentially once the beans are delivered to the chocolate makers, they undergo 4 different stages. First, step was to roast them. It is done similarly to roasting coffee beans, but on a gentler heat, to release the full flavour potential. This is what the lad next to the stove top is stirring. Next comes the breaking and winnowing the beans, where you get rid of the outer shell of the bean. This is the job of the two lads in the foreground. Lastly on the right side of the illustration, there is the person who is girding the beans on a heated concave surface called metate. The final product (chocolate liquor), which is sometimes sweetened is cooled down into sold blocks. These were often called chocolate cakes. Don’t mistake this for our chocolate bar. It was far from it. Because at the time they didn’t add extra cocoa butter nor did any conching (grinding the chocolate liquor for a long time), the resulting cakes were gritty, dry and brittle. The chocolate preparation methods, at least up till the chocolate liquor stage, hadn’t really changed since the ancient Mayan times. Only in the first half of the 19th century did the chocolate start it’s transformation that helped to create the type of chocolate we crave for today.

“The idea of using chocolate as a flavouring in cooked foods would have been horrifying to the Aztecs - just as Christians could not conceive of using communion wine to make, say, coq au vin.“ (Coe & Coe) So it isn’t surprising that chocolate use in recipes apart from the original chocolate drink took time to find its way into our dishes. While there are recipes that use cacao in recipes dating from 1680s, its use become much more common in the 18th century. Since chocolate was still a new ingredient to many Europeans, there was a lot of experimentation with it, which produced many interesting dishes. Some of which I wager would fit in nicely on some of the high end tweezer food restaurant menus. Chocolate coasted fried liver, black polenta or lasagne with a sauce of almonds, anchovies, walnuts and chocolate, anyone? If you are feeling less adventurous and in more of a need of some comfort food, chocolate ice-cream, biscuits and creams also had their debut in the 18th century. However, the chocolate recipes we are more familiar, such as chocolate cakes, brownies, fondants, didn’t make their appearance until the next century. That is because the processing methods that are used to create a smooth, creamy, melt in your mouth chocolate were yet to be invented.

So now that we have an idea of how chocolate was made in the 18th century and what to expect from it, I think it is time to try one some of the recipes. Till next time.

Sources

Books
Coe, Sophie D., Coe Michael D., The True History of Chocolate, Thames and Hudson, 1996
Diderot, Denis, "Confiseur," Supplément à l'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 3 (plates). Paris, 1765.
McGee, Harold, On Food and Cooking. The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Scribner, 2004
Riley, Gillian, The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, Oxford University Press, 2009

Websites
https://jcb.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/JCB~1~1~3715~5820006:Cacaotier-ou-Cacoyer-# (accessed 4th February, 2022)

Title image
Dutch Girl at Breakfast by Jean-Etienne Liotard, c. 1756 @ Rijksmuseum