Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke: By the wise and Moderate use whereof, Health is preserved, Sicknesse Diverted, and Cured, especially the Plague of the Guts; vulgarly called The New DiseaseColmenero de Ledesma, Antonio
History
Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke: By the wise and Moderate use whereof, Health is preserved, Sicknesse Diverted, and Cured, especially the Plague of the Guts; vulgarly called The New Disease
Colmenero de Ledesma, Antonio
Chocolate -- Early works to 1800
Concerning this Receipt I shall first say, This shooe will not fit
every foote; but for those, who have diseases, or are inclining to be
infirme, you may either adde, or take away, according to the
necessity, and temperature of every one: and I hold it not amisse,
that Sugar be put into it, when it is drunke, so that it be according
to the quantity I shall hereafter set downe. And sometimes they make
Tablets of the Sugar, and the _Chocolate_ together: which they doe
onely to please the Pallats, as the Dames of _Mexico_ doe use it; and
they are there sold in shops, and are confected and eaten like other
sweet-meats. For the Cloves, which are put into this drinke, by the
Author aforesaid, the best Writers of this Composition use them not;
peradventure upon this reason: that although they take away the ill
savour of the mouth, they binde; as a learned Writer hath exprest in
these verses:
Foetorem emendat oris Cariophilia foedum;
Constringunt ventrem, primaque membra juvant.
_Cloves doe perfume a stincking Breath, and Bind
The Belly; Hence the prime members comfort find._
And because they are binding (and hot and dry in the third degree)
they must not be used, though they help the chiefe parts of
Concoction, which are the Stomacke and the Liver, as appeares by the
Verses before recited.
The Huskes or Cods of Logwood, or Campeche, are very good, and smell
like Fennell; and every one puts in of these, because they are not
very hot; though it excuse not the putting in of Annis-seed, as sayes
the Author of this Receipt; for there is no _Chocolate_ without it,
because it is good for many cold diseases, being hot in the third
degree; and to temper the coldnesse of the _Cacao_; and that it may
appeare, it helpes the indisposition of Cold parts, I will cite the
Verses of one curious in this Art:
Morbosus renes, vesicam, guttura, vulnam,
Intestina, jecur, cumque lyene caput
Confortat, variisque Anisum subdita morbis
Membra: istud tantum vim leve semen habet.
_The Reyns, the Bladder, throat, & thing between--
Enatrailes and Liver, with the Head, and spleen
And other Parts, by [C] it are comforted:
So great a vertue's in that little seed._
[C] Annis.
The quantity of a Nut of the _Achiote_[D] is too little to colour the
quantity made according to his Receipt; and therefore, he that makes
it, may put in it, as much as he thinkes fit.
[D] Ta-asco.
Those, who adde Almons, and Nuts, doe not ill; because they give it
more body and substance then _Maiz_ or _Paniso_[E], which others use;
and for my part, I should always put it into _Chocolate_, for Almonds
(besides what I have said of them before) are moderately hot, and have
a thinne juice; but you must not use new Almons, as a learned Author
sayes in these Verses.
[E] A graine like Millet.
Dat modice calidum dulcisque Amigdala succum,
Et tenuem; inducunt plurima damna nova.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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