[Aztlan] chocolate

[David Hixson]

While Justin is most certainly correct, I just wanted
to point out that I was suggesting in my earlier email
a few ideas for elementary school students -- not
professional scholars (which was the listera's
question).

I am the husband and son of elementary school
teachers, and I've faced my fair share of youngsters
as I tried to describe various aspects of the Maya.

Justin is correct in that there is no evidence of a
"beater" or "molinillo" before the arrival of the
Spanish (the few indications are that chocolate drinks
may have been frothed and mixed by pouring the drink
between two vessels and that the molinillo was
introduced in the 16th century).

However, for elementary school students, it may be
best to stick with the ethnographic Maya approach to
chocolate (which today is no less "traditional" than
any other method -- in fact atole with chocolate is
considered a VERY traditional Yucatec Maya drink today
and the molinillo is still used in the more
traditional Maya homes).

So while using a chocolate beater to froth what is
otherwise a colonial version of ancient Maya chocolate
(now including sugar and cow's milk rather than honey
and atole) may seem too modern for scholars studying
the ancient Maya, it is certainly still an exciting
lesson in traditional cultures of Mesoamerica today
that would be well received by elementary school
children and would be true to modern Maya traditions.

Honestly, using the chocolate beater would be the
highlight of the lesson (give each kid a "spin") -- I
would guess that someone at U Penn has a traditional
wooden chocolate beater you could borrow.

Here are a few more links for the elementary school
teachers out there...

www2.ku.edu/~latamst/Lesson%20Plans/Guatemala/Bonnie%20Orozco-Chocolate-Lesson%20Plan.doc

And here's a quote from Sophie Coe's "True history of
Chocolate":

"The basic Aztec method of preparing chocolate...was
about the same as that prevalent among the Maya; the
only real difference is that it seems to have been
drunk cool rather than hot as seems to have been the
case among the Maya of Yucatan. One of the earliest
notices of this drink is by the hand of a man known to
scholars as the Anonymous Conqueror, described as "a
gentleman of Hernan Cortez," whos description of
Tenochtitlan was publishe in Venice in 1556: These
seeds which are called almonds or cacao are ground and
made into powder, and other small seeds are ground,
and this powder is put into certain basins with a
point... and then they put water on it and mix it with
a spoon. And after having mixed it very well, they
change it from one basin to another, so that a foam is
raised which they put in a vessel made for the
purpose. And when they wish to drink it, they mix it
with certain small spoons of gold or silver or wood,
and drink it, and drinking it one must open one's
mouth, because being foam one must give it room to
subside, and go down bit by bit. This drink is the
healthiest thing, and the greatest sustenance of
anything you could drink in the world, because he who
drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he
walks, can go a whole day without eating anything
else.' To this encomium the Anonymous Conqueror adds
the comment that "it is better in hot weather than in
cool, being cold is its nature...According to
Sahagun's native informants, fine chocolate was called
tlaquetzalli ("precious thing"), and was prepared by
the seller in this way: She grinds cacao [beans]; she
crushes, breaks, pulverizes them. She chooses,
selects, separates them. She drenches, soaks, steeps
them. She adds water sparingly, conservativley;
aerates it, filters it, strains it, pours it back and
forth, aerates it; she makes it form a head, makes
foam; she removes the head, makes it thicken, makes it
dry, pours water in, stirs water into it.' The
inferior product, the informatns tell us, was mixed
with nixtuamalli and water--in other words, a
chocolate-with-maize gruel drink...There is no mention
in these primary sources of the grooved wooden beater
or swizzle stick (Spanish molinillo) for the
production of the much-prized foam, nor does any word
for it appear in the first Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary,
that of Alonso de Molina, published in Mexico City in
1571. This item, so important later on in chocolate
preparation in America and Europe, must have been
introduced from Spain during the 16th century. By the
time the Jesuit Francesco Saverio Clavigero published
his detailed report on native Mexican live and hsitory
(in 1780, in Italian), he describes the use of the
molinillo, but totally omits the pouring from one
vessel to another to produce a good head on the
drink...There is, however, ample mention of stirrers
or stirring spoons. These were fashioned from tortoise
or sea turtle shell. Some of these survived the
Conquest, for among the confiscated goods of two Aztec
sorcerers arested by the early Spanish Inquisition
were many of these stirrers, along with cacao and the
cups from wich chocolate was drunk. Which brings us to
the cups themselves. A reading of our sources
indicates that these were small, hemispherical bowls
which could be of polychrome creamic; calabash
gourd...painted or lacquered with designs; and even
gold, in the case of the huei tlatoani."

---True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and
Michael D. Coe [Thames & Hudson:London] 1996 (p.
86-88)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than
can be paraphrased here. It also includes notes on the
use of chocolate in Mayan civization.]

THE ABOVE QUOTE WAS COPIED AND PASTED FROM THE
FOLLOWING FORUM POST:
http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14824

-Dave



       
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