Posted on 09/02/2013 2:15:54 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
A university academic says she believes she has uncovered the first English recipes for iced chocolate desserts.
Dr Kate Loveman, from the University of Leicester, said she found the recipes in manuscripts which belonged to the Earl of Sandwich in 1668.
At the time, the chocolate treats came with a health warning for damaging the stomach, heart and lungs.
The research also shows some of the regular themes in chocolate advertising across the centuries.
Dr Loveman, a senior lecturer in 17th and 18th Century English literature, said she was looking through a Samuel Pepys journal when she came across a 30-page section on chocolate.
Dr Kate Loveman said the recipe was for a very solid, dark version of iced chocolate drinks "It struck me as quite an unusual, odd thing because I have never come across anything quite like this before," she said.
"So I thought I would look into it further to find out how unusual it actually was.
"It's not chocolate ice-cream, but more like a very solid and very dark version of the iced chocolate drinks you get in coffee shops today.
"Freezing food required cutting-edge technology in 17th Century England, so these ices were seen as great luxuries."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Prepare the chocolatti (to make a drink)
Putt the vessell that hath the chocolate in it, into a jaraffa (carafe) of snow stirred together with some salt
Shake the snow together sometyme and it will putt the chocolatti into tender curdled ice
Soe eate it with spoons
Sounds like a mashed up fudgesicle.
Sounds like the Earl of Sandwich invented the classic fast food combo of a burger and a shake.
It was this Earl’s great grandson who invented the sandwich... Spunds ike this chef business ran in the family.
Not at all guilty
The Earl’s were always good for a sandwich and a chocolate shake.
I'd like to know more about this cutting edge technology. How would they have frozen something in the 17th century apart from naturally occuring ice shipped in from somewhere and some salt. Did they have refrigeration of some sort back then?
They didn’t have refrigeration, but they did know how to use insulation.
Salted snow.
Salted snow would work but that doesn’t seem like cutting edge technology, even for the 16th century. I was hoping they had a crazy contraption with bellows and copper pipes that when driven by a team of 12 horses could chill a cup of chocolatti for the king and a few of his favorite courtiers.
I suspect the belief in toxicity came from feeding unsweetened chocolate to dogs. Theobromine is the toxic chemical, and there is 8-10 times more in unsweetened chocolate than milk chocolate. When people thought it was possibly poisonous was probably in the days when it was consumed as an unsweetened drink.
The official toxicity level for dogs is 100-200mg/kg. (1 kiliogram = 2.2 pounds), but according to the ASPCA, symptoms can appear with as little as 20mg/kg, which would mean that a 10 pound dog could eat as little as 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate to become sick.
If you want to be a little wild with chocolate for adults, here is a reconstructed Aztec beverage recipe.
6 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
6 teaspoons vanilla
4 cup boiling water
ground chili pepper to taste
Grate the unsweetened chocolate into a bowl and cover it with a little of the boiling water. Mash the mixture into a
paste. Add the rest of the water and vanilla and mix. When cool, beat with an electric mixer until frothy. Add the
chili pepper to liven up the drink.
The chocolate will not totally dissolve and will have a grittiness to it.
Disregard any impulses to conduct human sacrifice, which is not legal in the United States other than in parts of Illinois.
And for dessert, Chocolate Cheese!
1 lb Velveeta Cheese
1 lb Butter
4 lb Confectioners Sugar
1 c Cocoa
2 tsp Vanilla
Preparation
In large saucepan, slowly melt cheese and butter together. Sift sugar and cocoa together. Add to melted cheese mixture, stir until completely dissolved. Mixture will be stiff. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Allow to cool in refrigerator, frost. Store covered in fridge.
Frosting Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. Vietnamese Cinnamon (regular cinnamon will work, but not be as spicy)
1 tsp. Grand Marnier
I read the other day that a cup of cocoa lawers blood pressure. With Syria on the horizon, we all need that.
lawers = lowers
People experiment a lot. I had a friend who owned a health food store, and he said that some people would buy a quart jar of chopped garlic a week.
Puzzled, I asked “Restaurant?”
And he said, no, that while watching TV in the evening, they would snack on spoonfuls of raw garlic. Then he remarked that it was probably really good for their blood pressure.
“Why’s that?”, I asked.
“No kids”, he replied.
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