Introduction
This page uses a blend of socio-economic historical sources and artistic and literary representations to explore the status of chocolate in eighteenth-century society. It locates the object within the spheres of globalized commerce and imperialism and also investigates the links between patterns of consumption and social class. In addition, the study focuses on the role of the chocolate-house in the eighteenth-century town and distinguishes its social and political functions from those of the coffee-houses.
Chocolate is produced from the seeds of the cacao tree which originates from Mesoamerican countries including Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and parts of Mexico and Costa Rica. The Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, assigned the cacao tree its scientific name, Theobroma cacao, in 1753. The Spanish were the first to bring cocoa beans to Europe at the beginning of the 17th century although it is important to emphasize that the chocolate of the 18th century was very different to the product that we have today. As Sophie Coe states: ‘when we modern Westerners think of chocolate, we think of it in its solid, sweetened form… Yet during nine tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten’ (Coe, 12). It was only during the period of industrialization in the 19th century that solid chocolate was produced.
The OED defines chocolate as:
1.) A beverage made from the seeds of the cacao-tree; now, as distinguished from cocoa, that made by dissolving chocolate cake in boiling water or milk.
1604 E. Grimeston tr. J. de Acosta Nat. & Morall Hist. Indies iv. xxii. 271 The chiefe vse of this Cacao is in a drinke which they call Chocolate.
1662 H. Stubbes (title) The Indian nectar; or, a discourse concerning chocolata.
1664 S. Pepys Diary 24 Nov. (1971) V. 329 To a Coffee-house to drink Jocolatte, very good.
a1684 J. Evelyn Diary anno 1682 (1955) IV. 268 Also they drank of a sorbett & Jacolatte.
1684 Frost of 1683–4 (1844) 28 Wine, beer, ale, brandy, chockelet.
?1706 E. Hickeringill Priest-craft: 2nd Pt. vi. 62 Bless the Mahometan Coffee, and the Popish Spanish Chocolate.
1771 T. Smollett Humphry Clinker I. 35 He asked if she would take a dish of chocolate.
2. A paste or cake composed of the seeds of the cacao-fruit roasted and ground, sweetened and flavoured with vanilla and other substances. This is used to make the beverage and also eaten in various comfits. Esp. a sweetmeat in the form of bars, cakes, or drops, often with a qualifying word. Also with a and pl., a sweetmeat made entirely of or coated with chocolate.
1659 R. Lovell Παμβοτανολογια 70 Cacao..the confection thereof, Chocolate.
1662 H. Stubbe Indian Nectar Pref. sig. A7, The best Chocolata, call'd Chocolata-Royal, will cost six shillings six pence each pound.
1682 London Gaz. No. 1750/4, Chocolatte is sold, from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per Pound.
1710 Swift Lett. (1767) III. 27 The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella.
The birth of chocolate: Sir Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane was an eminent physician, botanist and collector who was a fellow of the College of Physicians and member of the Royal Society. After qualifying as a physician, Sloane traveled to Jamaica with the aim of discovering new plants and species which could revolutionize scientific knowledge and push the boundaries of contemporary medicine. He meticulously cataloged his discoveries and collected specimens, with his collections eventually being brought back to England and displayed to the public at the British Museum in London, founded in 1753. During his time on the island, Sloane observed the Jamaicans mixing cocoa with water but found the concoction to be unpalatable due to its bitterness. Through experimenting with the recipe, he discovered that mixing pure cocoa with milk and sugar made the substance sweeter and more palatable.
Sloane recorded his observations on the Jamaican's use of the cocoa plant in his travel narrative, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica (1707):
Chocolate is here us'd by all People, at all times, but chiefly in the morning; it seems by its oiliness chiefly to be nourishing,and by the Eggs mixt with it to be render'd more so. The Custom, and very common usage of drinking it came to us from the Spaniards, although ours here is plain, without Spice. I found it in great quantities, nauseous, and hard of digestion, which I suppose came from its great oiliness, and therefore I was very unwilling to allow weak Stomachs the use of it, though Children and Infants drink it here, as commonly as in England they feed on Milk. Chocolate colours the Excrements of those feeding on it of a dirty colour. The common use of this, by all People in several Countries in America, proves sufficiently its being a wholesome Food. The drinking of it actually warm, may make it the more Stomachic, for we know by Anatomical preparations, that the tone of the fibres are strengthened by dipping the Stomach in hot water, and that hot Liquors will dissolve what cold will leave unaffected (Sloane: 34)
In present society we think of chocolate as being an unhealthy food to be consumed in moderation, mainly due to its high sugar content and concentration of saturated fat. Yet the chocolate of the eighteenth century had a much higher concentration of cocoa and was considered to be beneficial to health. Sloane's observations emphasize how it had perceived medicinal qualities and was considered a 'wholesome food.'
Sloane showed his entrepreneurial qualities by selling the recipe to the Cadbury brothers on his return to England. Below an advertisement by a wholesaler selling the valuable commodity to 'nobility, gentry and others' gives an insight into the pivotal role played by the physician Hans Sloane in the introduction of drinking chocolate to the British diet as well as the financial benefits Sloane enjoyed. The retailer seeks to assure the customer that their chocolate, despite being 'considerably cheaper' than that of rival wholesalers, is still of the purest and most refined kind. Note that Sloane's chocolate is significantly more expensive than cocoa shells due to the fact that value was added when the cocoa was sweetened and made available for instant consumption.
Advertisement from 'T. Boot's Warehouse,' a wholesaler selling cocoa, coffee and tea.
Perceived medicinal qualities
As Sloane’s account of Jamaican cocoa emphasizes, chocolate was considered to be beneficial to health and a number of scientific essays and periodicals were produced in the eighteenth-century speculating on its remedial nature. In a 1750 periodical, John Hill describes some of cocoa’s perceived medicinal benefits: ‘water seems to be the best vehicle… as the most proper to distribute its nutritive parts, and to promote digestion. The composition of chocolate makes it chiefly proper for persons of cold constitutions, for old people’ (Hill, 239). Hill’s reflections are rooted in a seminal work of the time, D. Quėlus’ The Natural History of Chocolate, published in 1725. Quėlus made the bold claim that ‘Chocolate is very proper to preserve Health, and to Prolong the Life of Old Men.’ Hill therefore echoes Quėlus' observations, namely that cocoa is 'the panacea of old age' (Quėlus, 66).
Yet perceptions of chocolate were not universally positive in the scientific world. One figure who stood outside mainstream discourse on the subject of cocoa was the notable Scottish physician George Cheyne. Famous for his contributions to discourses on health, nutrition and vegetarianism in the 18th century, Cheyne warns against some of more negative effects of cocoa consumption in his Opinion of Coffee, Tea and Chocolate published in the Newcastle General Magazine in 1747:
As to chocolate, I am of Opinion, it is too hot and heavy for valetudinarian Persons, and those of weak Nerves…I doubt if they (cocoa beans) can afford much Nourishment to Persons of weak Digestions. Some say Chocolate gives them an Appetite, the Meaning of which may be, that when they have a good Appetite for their Breakfast, it is not unlikely it may continue all the Day: But I am of Opinion, ‘tis a false and hysterical Appetite (Cheyne, 231).
Dr. Cheyne’s negative opinion of the cocoa-bean is in opposition to the popular consensus which hailed drinking chocolate as a natural ‘wonder-drug’ which boosted overall wellbeing. Cheyne’s position on chocolate reflects how he was a pioneering figure in the world of science as he offers a reminder that the effects of cocoa are still not really known in the mid-18th century and that people would be sensible to be cautious in their consumption of the drink.
Chocolate and the development of the global market
The chocolate consumed by the aristocracy in England was the product of a chain of commerce which started with the acquisition of cocoa-nuts in the West Indies and culminated in the selling of chocolate on the stock exchange in London. The cocoa-bean trade was an extremely lucrative one and the purchasing and transportation of cocoa-beans from the West Indies to Europe enabled many enterprising merchants to make substantial profits. The consumption of chocolate was thus inextricably tied to the development of a global market for the trading of commodities. The system of transatlantic slavery also enabled the importation of both cacao seeds as well as the sugar used to sweeten the mixture with the cultivation of the seeds of the cacao tree being undertaken by African slaves on plantations. The Spanish monopolized the cacao market (particularly in Venezuela) but the English and Dutch sought to break up their monopoly. The extent of the Spanish domination of the market is shown by the fact that the Basque company 'The Royal Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas' was responsible for all the trade in Venezuela. Sophie Coe estimates that 'between 1730 and 1784, the Compania Guipuzcoana exported more than 43,000 tons of cacao to Spain' (Coe, 192). The escalation of tensions between the English and the Spanish during the years of the War of the Spanish Succession, however, meant that private vessels were often granted a 'Letter of Marque' authorizing them to attack Spanish ships and claim the resultant plunder. The eighteenth-century thus saw a rapid growth in privateering as individuals exploited the political situation to make substantial profits from seizing valuable commodities such as chocolate.
Privateering expeditions represented attractive profit-making ventures for many entrepreneurial individuals. The accounts of the English sea-captain and privateer, Woodes Rogers, represent a useful historical document for understanding the importance of the cocoa-bean to world trade in the eighteenth-century as well as the attraction of privateering for those seeking fortunes . Between 1707 and 1710, Woods and the famous explorer William Dampier set out on a privateering excursion around the world, fighting against the Spanish and making returns on the investments made by merchants in their expedition. Rogers chronicled the events of his voyage and the trade in cocoa-beans is represented as an extremely profitable one. Upon seizing the Spanish-controlled town of Guiaquil in Peru, Roger’s gives a detailed account of the plunder taken and describes how it included tonnes of loaf-sugar and cocoa. He remarks that the quantity of cocoa seized from the Spanish was so great that they decided to sell it back to them: ‘we left abundance of goods in the Town, besides Liquors of most forts… with several Warehouses full of Cocoa… by this it appears the Spaniards had a good bargain; but this Ransom was far better for us than to burn what we could not carry off’ (Rogers, 185). The abundance of cocoa described by Rogers gives some insight into just how attractive privateering was in the eighteenth-century. With the price of chocolate being consistently higher than that of coffee and tea, descriptions of 'warehouses full of Cocoa' would have provoked excitement among potential privateers looking to meet the English demand for chocolate.
Roger’s account is a useful insight into how the cocoa-bean trade in the West Indies was an extremely lucrative one but it doesn’t convey how competitive the market was. Imperial powers went head-to-head in the acquisition and transportation of cocoa-beans. One of England’s most bitter rivals was France. Official state papers reveal that the English were far from monopolizing the market and gaining the upper-hand over the French, with documentation showing that during George III’s reign, the Crown were aware of illicit trade routes set-up by the French to exploit the potential of English colonies as producers of cocoa. Admiral Tyrrel wrote to the Earl of Halifax is 1765 to give an update on the situation in the West Indies:
Almost all the produce of the Islands of Dominica and St. Vincent (coffee, cocoa, and tobacco) has been carried into the French Islands by small armed French vessels. A number of the latter have been taken by an armed vessel, which the Admiral was obliged to hire into the service, to cruise with a sloop-of-war. As those vessels carried from six to fourteen carriage guns and a number of swivels and men, they often beat off the boats belonging to the ships-of-war, when they followed them into bays where the ships could not go, and, under cover of the night, got loaded and went back to St. Lucia, from whence they generally came in eight or ten hours. But since the small armed vessels which can pursue them anywhere have been employed, there is almost a stop put to this infamous trade. There is also a great quantity of coffee and cocoa sent to the French Islands from Grenada, and they get in return all kinds of French goods, which hinders the sale of English commodities. Tobago is in its infancy, and produces nothing; therefore, of course, no clandestine trade is carried on there. But between the Virgin Islands and the Dutch and Danish Islands a trade is carried on… (2)
The letter reveals how the French had an influential role in the cocoa market and were responsible for the Crown losing significant sums of revenue. It is dated July 1765, two years after the end of the Seven Years’ War and Britain’s apparent victory which saw a number of territorial shifts, with England acquiring several new colonies from France. Tyrrel’s account problematizes this simplistic historical narrative, however, as he describes how the French have monopolized the cocoa-bean trade in Dominica and St. Vincent, two Caribbean islands which were supposed to be neutral under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763). What is more interesting, however, is the fact that the French are continuing to export cocoa-beans from Grenada in 1765 despite the fact that this island was ceded to the English Crown by the French under the terms of the agreement. The value of the commodity is reflected by the very fact that imperial powers were willing to break treaties in order to acquire greater quantities of cocoa. Tyrrel describes how the boats used by the French to transport cocoa-beans back to St. Lucia were heavily armored, some mounted with fourteen guns, providing further evidence that the trade in chocolate was a bitterly fierce yet lucrative one.
1. Jonathan's Coffee House: 'Analysis of Change Alley with a Group of Characters from the Life,' Jacob Henriques (1763). This illustration of the interior of Jonathan's Coffee House, the original London Stock Exchange on Exchange Alley, shows speculators trading stocks in valuable commodities (which would have included cocoa). The scene is one of bustling activity and commotion and provides an interesting visualization of the Exchange House scene described in Susanna Centlivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife.
The alluring prospect of making tremendous fortunes through trading cocoa-beans is reflected in Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story. After Dorriforth marries Miss. Milner and the couple finally seem to have reached a state of complete happiness, Dorriforth (now Lord Elmwood) has to abruptly leave England and go abroad:
Lord Elmwood, after four years passed in the most perfect enjoyment of happiness, the marriage state could give; after seeing himself the father of a beautiful daughter, whom he loved with a tenderness nearly equal to his love for her mother, Lord Elmwood was then under the indispensable necessity of leaving them both for a time, in order to save from the depredation of his steward, a very large estate in the West Indies (196)
It is significant that it is to the West Indies that Dorriforth travels, the source of the world's cocoa-beans and the epicenter of the global chocolate market. Dorriforth is himself a chocolate drinker and it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that the large estate that he is hoping to save from degradation is one where the cocoa-tree is harvested. Contemporary readers of A Simple Story, aware of travel narratives such as Roger's account of his world voyage, would most certainly have made the connection between the West Indies and the commodity of chocolate and they might have viewed Dorriforth as a privateer-figure in search of exorbitant profits. In prioritizing the safeguarding of a cocoa-estate in the West Indies over his wife and daughter, it might be argued that Inchbald makes a critique of the insatiable desire of privateers who look to make extortionate profits abroad even if it means neglecting their families back home.
The final destination of all privateering expeditions was, of course, the city of London, the hub of exchange and the endpoint to the chain of commerce. The original Stock Exchange, based in Jonathan’s Coffee House on Exchange Alley, was a hub for speculators trading lucrative commodities from all over the globe. The bustling activity of the Exchange is portrayed in Susanna Centlivre’s A Bold Stroke for a Wife. In Act IV Scene I when stockbrokers are reading out the rising and falling prices of various stocks in Jonathan’s Coffee House, speculators shout aloud to each other: “who does anything in the Civil List lottery? Or cacoa? Zounds, where are all the Jews this afternoon? Are you a bull or a bear today?” (924). The scene is a fascinating insight into the foundations of modern capitalism and the environment is one of fierce competition and pressure. The stockbroker’s enquiry into the price of cocoa stocks emphasizes how for mercantile capitalists in the eighteenth-century, chocolate was a means of accumulating wealth and was more than just a luxury foodstuff. The stock-exchange is thus presented as the space where the forces of globalized commerce and imperialism converge: commodities secured by entrepreneurial capitalists on privateering missions are traded as invisible figures meaning that the chain of commerce is extended well beyond the commodity's country of production. A Marxist reading of the scene would suggest that the commodity of chocolate assumes the appearance of an intangible exchange-value detached from the process of its creation, a labour-process which involved the harvesting, often by slaves, of cocoa-beans on plantations and their transportation to England by individuals like Woodes Rogers.
Price and Import Duties
Chocolate was an expensive commodity in 18th century England due to the heavy import duties levied by the Crown on shipments from the West Indies. Cocoa-nuts and paste being transported from plantations in the West Indies were also subject to higher taxes than cocoa originating from other parts of the world. A close inspection of retailer’s advertisements reveals that cocoa was often significantly more expensive than coffee. The advertisement for ‘T. Boot’s Warehouse’ in Eagle-Street, Piccadilly (1790, shown above) shows that Jamaican coffee was priced at three shillings and four pence compared to Sloane’s chocolate which was sold for five shillings. Even when sold in its unprocessed and raw form as cocoa beans, chocolate was still more expensive than coffee from the colonies: three shillings and six pence compared to three shillings and four pence. The only exception to the trend is Turkish coffee which was notably more expensive because, as Brian Cowan states, the Turkish variety ‘retained a reputation for being of higher quality than the East Indian imports’ (Cowan, 72). (For more information on the price of coffee in the eighteenth-century, see Coffee). Similarly, an advertisement from December 1800 from R. C. Gedge & Co.'s warehouse (below) shows the price difference to be even more pronounced as the most expensive variety of Jamaican plantation coffee retails at four shillings and six pence whereas Sloane's chocolate is sold for six shillings. It is also interesting to note that R. C. Gedge's prices are significantly higher than those of T. Boot's and this is most likely due to inflation between 1790 and 1800. High import duties were certainly a major factor in contributing to the price of cocoa being higher than that of coffee but a closer inspection of primary sources showing the levels of taxes imposed on both commodities problematizes such a simplistic explanation and suggests that other factors played a crucial role.
Advertisement from 'R. C Gedge and Co.' This price index corroborates the assertion that cocoa was consistently more expensive than
coffee in the eighteenth-century.
An article in The London Journal (May 30, 1724)
An article in The London Journal provides a fascinating insight into the public response to the Crown’s enforcement of stricter excise duties. The columnist reflects upon the implications of taxes being raised under George I and comments that it is in the public interest that commodities are appropriately taxed and that the Government are not ‘defrauded’ of capital which could be used to pay-off the public debt, a task considered an imperative in ‘times of quiet and leisure:’
The difference between the state of the café, after this Bill comes to operate, and that before it, is, that for a long time past, it has been notorious that four parts in five of all the coffee consumed here, and nineteen in twenty of all the cocoa nuts… have been clandestinely and knavishly brought in, and what is worse, paid for by the subjects of Great Britain, in specie; by which means, a very great summ of Money, perhaps above 100,000 pounds, has gone out of the kingdom yearly into the hands of foreigners (2)
It is likely that the columnist exaggerates when he claims that ninety-five percent of the chocolate consumed in English drinking establishments has been imported illegally yet it provides a useful insight into how public opinion was not completely against the notion of raising taxes (and thereby increasing prices) in order to assist with the management of the public debt. What is most significant here, however, is the distinction the columnist makes between cocoa and coffee beans as he suggests that the percentage of cocoa beans illegally imported into the realm is greater than that of coffee. This provides an explanation for the higher price of chocolate in warehouse retail price indexes: as greater quantities of cocoa were illegally imported compared to coffee, the duties levied on this commodity would be higher, thus causing inflation. Such a simplistic explanation, however, is undermined by an inspection of government statutes in the eighteenth-century which outline the levels of tax placed on certain commodities.
Throughout the period, import duties on cocoa were raised in an attempt to generate capital for the Crown. Legislation implemented by William of Orange was repeatedly modified and tweaked to maximize the revenue raised from taxing imported commodities. In addition to cocoa and coffee, taxes were also imposed on spirits, candles, soap, tobacco, glass and even coaches. A Parliamentary Act found in A collection of several statutes and clauses defined the aim of raising import duties during Queen Anne’s reign:
‘An Act for granting Her Majesty new duties of excise, and upon several imported commodities, and for establishing a yearly fund thereby, and by other ways and means, to raise nine hundred thousand pounds’ (2).
The Crown was conscious of the revenue lost due to merchant’s evasion of import duties and legislation was tightened to ensure that rules were more stringent and taxes more difficult to evade. Statutes show how officers of the monarch’s ‘Revenue of Excise’ chamber were granted freedom to board ships and perform search and seizure operations when merchants were suspected of smuggling cocoa beans into Britain without paying import duties. The legislation granted these officials the right to ‘rummage and search’ aboard merchant ships coming from the West Indies and to seize cocoa-nuts and paste ‘for his Majesty’s use.’
Despite the inflated price of chocolate in comparison to other commodities, a comparison of the import duties on coffee with those on chocolate does not reveal a major difference in the taxes imposed. This is demonstrated by looking at government import duties listed in A Collection of Several Statutes and clauses now in force (1754):
“For every Hundred weight of Coffee imported, as aforesaid, accounting One Hundred and twelve pounds to the Hundred, fifty six Shillings of lawful English money: for every Hundred weight of Cocoa-Nuts imported, and containing, as aforesaid, from any the Plantations belonging to the Crown of England, fifty six Shillings… for every pound of Chocolate, imported as aforesaid, One Shilling, for every Pound of Cocoa Paste imported… Two Shillings” (568)
The fact that chocolate was often more expensive than coffee despite the same level of import duty being levied against both commodities raises questions as to why chocolate enjoyed the privileged status of being the exclusive preserve of the upper classes. Although high excise duties imposed on cocoa were certainly pivotal to the soaring of the commodity’s retail price, the fact that coffee was subject to similarly high taxes suggests that there were other factors which played a part in the price of chocolate becoming extortionately high. The complex processes involved in the cultivation and refinement of cocoa beans provides one possible explanation. In an article in The British Magazine from June 1750, John Hill describes the labour-intensive yet highly lucrative business of harvesting, drying and extracting the cream-like pulp from the cocoa beans:
They are the most profitable trees in the whole world to cultivate, one acre of them in Jamaica (from whence we receive more nuts than from all the rest of the plantations), having cleared above two hundred pounds in a year… the tree is difficult to cultivate, and the climate it grows in so warm, that, to guard it from the sun, it is planted in the shade of another tree, called Mother of Cacao; and the profit arising from the fruit is so considerable, that we are told that some of the Spaniards make five thousand pounds sterling per annum from one plantation of cacao’s (Hill, 239)
Hill’s account suggests that the time consuming process of refinement means that the value-added is significant even before the commodity has been transported across the Atlantic. Climatic conditions had to be exactly right before pods ripened and once picked, workers on plantations had to leave the pods to sweat for three days before taking out the cocoa nuts and wrapping them in plantain leaves so that they could be left to dry for several weeks. Such a time-consuming process inevitably meant that the value of the refined cocoa bean soared. Hill gives some insight into just how much value is added in the refinement process when he states that raw cocoa-beans are traded between natives at the rate of fourteen nuts as equal to seven pence sterling, a fact which is astonishing given the fact that the same quantity of refined cocoa is sold in England for over five times that value (Hill, 239)
Class Implications
Chocolate's high retail price in eighteenth-century England has led to cultural historians making a distinction between coffee and chocolate drinkers. They have asserted that the higher value of the cocoa-bean compared to the coffee-bean rendered chocolate the more exclusive commodity enjoyed by members of the aristocratic classes. Sophie and Michael Coe assert that 'throughout the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the New World, chocolate-drinking was widespread among all classes... but this was definitely not the case in Europe.' (Coe, 206). The different rungs of the social ladder in European countries were reflected by the type of beverage consumed by specific socio-economic groups: 'the average nobleman drank chocolate for a leisurely breakfast, while the bourgeois businessman was shaken awake by coffee... and the Proletariat? They drank alcohol' (Coe, 204). William Clarence-Smith offers a blunter assessment of the correlation between social class and chocolate consumption, asserting that cocoa represented one of the many 'feckless excesses of the aristocracy' (Smith, 14). A survey of primary material largely corroborates Coe and Smith's conclusion that chocolate was a luxurious preserve enjoyed by the upper classes in England.
2. 'Lady Pouring Chocolate,' Jean Étienne-Liotard (circa. 1744) 3. 'The Chocolate Girl,' Jean Étienne-Liotard (circa.1744/1745)
In both art and literature, the practice of drinking chocolate is represented as a pastime confined to members of the aristocracy. The work of Swiss-French painter Jean-Étienne Liotard is useful in this regard. Liotard's ‘Lady Pouring Chocolate’ provides a fascinating insight into how members of the upper echelons of European society enjoyed chocolate. Everything about the painting suggests luxury and exclusivity. Light illuminates the table, drawing the viewer’s gaze towards the ornate cups, saucers and jugs the lady uses in her preparation of the drink. She appears to be sweetening the cocoa with sugar in the way Sir Hans Sloane suggested in order to make it more palatable. The decoration of the room is ornate and refined, with an elegantly carved chair and dresser. By the Lady’s feet, a foot-warmer with hot coals can be seen. These various signs of material wealth and convenience render the chocolate she pours synonymous with luxury and appear to corroborate Coe’s assertion that the consumption of the drink was confined to the upper rungs of the social ladder. A comparison with the portrait on the right, possibly the most famous of Liotard’s works, emphasizes the class implications of chocolate consumption as the maid, staring straight ahead with her face turned away from the viewer, is focused on serving the drink to her master or mistress. The fact that the painting’s subject doesn’t look towards the viewer suggests that she is preoccupied with her responsibilities as chambermaid and that the consumption of the chocolate is confined to her social superiors- she isn’t allowed to enjoy it.
Chocolate is also presented as the drink of the upper classes in literature. In Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story (1791), Lord Elmwood (Dorriforth) drinks chocolate as opposed to coffee, a fact which has subtle but significant class implications. After Dorriforth inherits his estate and title to become Lord Elmwood, it is significant that chocolate is the choice of drink in Elmwood House as it symbolizes how his position on the higher rungs of the social ladder is secure. On learning of the news of his wife’s death, Dorriforth is described as being unable to ‘taste his chocolate during this interval’ (204). Upon first glance it appears insignificant that Dorriforth is unable to taste his cocoa at this point in the novel. Yet when thinking about the relationship between chocolate and social class, it might be argued that Dorriforth’s inability to taste his chocolate symbolises his fear that his name will be shrouded in anonymity now that his wife has passed away and that he has no male heir to pass the Elmwood estate and title down to. The dispensation from his Catholic vows had enabled him to preserve his name for the sake of posterity yet now his position within the aristocratic elite is more tenuous. Chocolate is thus used as a powerful motif to symbolize the troubling of Dorriforth's aristocratic self-definition.
Morning chocolate and morning coffee: how trends in consumption reflected social class
The concept of ‘Morning Chocolate’ cements the commodity’s status as the preserve of the aristocratic elite. This idea refers to the idle consumption of the beverage by ‘ladies of leisure,’ a practice symbolic of aristocratic indulgence and excess. The origin of this practice (as well as the subsequent association between cocoa and aristocratic excess) is historically located in the seventeenth-century and represents the product of a process of cultural assimilation. In the early seventeenth-century, the consumption of chocolate was mainly confined to Catholic European countries, namely Spain, because of the monopoly the Spanish had on the global cocoa-bean trade as well as the fact that it was attractive for Catholics who could consume the beverage during religious fasting periods without the fear of breaking doctrinal rules. When the French appropriated the cultural practice of cocoa-consumption in the late seventeenth century, however, there was a distinct redefinition of its image. The Spanish consumption of cocoa on the grounds of religious pragmatism was eroded as it became a symbol of aristocratic indulgence. Smith charts how, by the eighteenth-century, the process of cultural assimilation and the ‘rebranding’ of cocoa was complete, describing how artistic representation reflected the association between chocolate and the ‘idle clergy and nobility’ of Catholic states: ‘a popular motif for painters was the breakfast scene, in which a noble woman, often in bed and revealing much of her ample flesh, languidly took her morning chocolate in the company of a priest’ (Smith, 14). This morning indulgence was markedly distinct from the bourgeoisie’s ritualistic consumption of morning coffee as it occurred in bed in the boudoir as opposed to at the breakfast table. Wolfgang Schivelbusch describes the difference between morning coffee and morning chocolate consumption: ‘breakfast chocolate had little in common with the bourgeoisie’s breakfast coffee… whereas the middle-class family sat erect at the table, with a sense of disciplined propriety, the essence of the chocolate ritual was fluid, lazy, languid motion. If coffee virtually shook drinkers awake for the workday that lay ahead, chocolate was meant to create an intermediary state between lying down and sitting up’ (91). Patterns in consumption thus provide a fascinating insight into class relations as the landed elite’s preference for morning chocolate distinguished them from the newly emergent bourgeois public sphere. The presence of caffeine in coffee, which rendered it a psychoactive stimulant drug, meant that it provided middle-class families with an aid to kick-start the working day. The aristocratic elite, meanwhile, didn’t require the practical benefits of coffee as their time was often spent in leisure.
4. 'The Four Times of Day: Morning,' Nicholas Lancret (circa 1739)
5. 'Early Morning Chocolate,' Pietro Longhi (Venice, circa 1775-1780)
Eighteenth-century artistic representations of ‘Morning Chocolate’ corroborate Schivelbusch and Smith’s assertions that the practice was a cultural phenomenon associated with the aristocracy. Nicholas Lancret’s ‘Morning’ and Pietro Longhi’s ‘Early Morning Chocolate’ are just two archetypal scenes of indulgence and leisure that were tropes of eighteenth-century artistic production. In both paintings, the consumption of chocolate is characterized by the ‘lazy, languid motion’ described by Schivelbusch. The presence of the bed in both paintings is significant as it symbolizes idleness and leisure, including in the sexual senses of these terms. (In the eighteenth-century, the private space of the bed was associated with the performativity of sexuality and was an object invested in sexual relations, see Beds). In both paintings, the lady of leisure is accompanied by her abbot in the consumption of cocoa yet Lancret’s scene is distinctly more sexualized as the lady’s loosened top exposes a naked breast. In consuming chocolate whilst lying down in bed, a more private space compared to the dining room, the intimacy of the experience is emphasized and there are definite sexual undertones. The body posture and facial expressions of the figures convey lethargy and even laziness, demonstrating how chocolate was consumed in the knowledge that it didn’t have the same energizing, stimulating effects of coffee.
Morning Chocolate in John Cleland’s Fanny Hill
The consumption of chocolate and its associations with aristocratic idleness and sexual indulgence are reflected in Fanny Hill. Fanny is increasingly exposed to the luxuries and excesses of aristocratic living when she works in Mrs. Cole’s Covent Garden brothel, an establishment frequented by wealthy noblemen. It is ironic that it is through prostitution that Fanny becomes accustomed to the cultural practices of society’s elite as chocolate, as opposed to coffee, is consumed by the prostitutes and their noblemen after the conclusion of an orgy:
As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to his partner, for the night especially, and even till he relinquished possession over to the community, in order to preserve a pleasing property and to avoid the disgusts and indelicacy of another arrangement, the company, after a short refection of biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served in at now about one in the morning, broke up and went off in pairs. Mrs Cole had prepared my spark and me an occasional field-bed, to which we retired, and there ended the night in one continued strain of pleasure, sprightly and uncloyed enough for us not to have formed one wish for its ever knowing an end. In the morning, after a restorative breakfast in bed, he got up, and with very tender assurances of a particular regard for me, left me to the composure and refreshment of a sweet slumber (124)
The sexualized undertones of Lancret’s painting, which depicts the consumption of chocolate in the intimate space of the bedchamber, are made more explicit here as the participants in the orgy mark the conclusion of the sexual act with the serving of cocoa. It is consumed in the early hours of the morning in the bedchamber as opposed to at the breakfast table, reflecting how the aristocracy’s leisurely drinking of chocolate was distinct from the bourgeoisie’s pragmatic use of coffee. Fanny’s consumption of chocolate signifies how, through prostitution, she has gained access to the cultural practices of social groups which she was previously detached from when she came to London as a 15 year old orphan. Prostitution has enabled Fanny to transcend class categories as she joins the ranks of her social superiors in enjoying the conveniences and pleasures of aristocratic life, with chocolate consumption being an important motif demonstrating this fact. Even when Fanny has an affair with Mr. H’s servant-boy, Will, a boy whom she identifies as being on the same rung of the social ladder as herself (he’s described as being ‘too low in rank’), she wakes up to enjoy a chocolate breakfast in a scene which replicates Lancret and Longhi’s depictions of noble-women enjoying their morning chocolate:
Nor were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of never giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken in throwing myself thus entirely upon his honour… In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were landed, at a public house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for the reception of duet parties of pleasure, where a breakfast of chocolate was prepared for us. (76)
Chocolate thus represents an important motif in Fanny Hill as Fanny's consumption of cocoa is emblematic of the way in which her profession enables her to transcend categories of social class and move fluidly through class structures as the preserve of the aristocracy is shown to be enjoyed by a prostitute, a marginalized figure in eighteenth-century society.
Chocolate and Democracy: the relationship between an emerging bourgeois public sphere and the commodity of chocolate
Chocolate has an unlikely relationship with the origins of democratic free-speech. The eighteenth century has been identified by historians and social theorists as the period in which the development of the public sphere in Britain can be traced. A seminal work in the Frankfurt School's sociological-historical account of the origins of what we now term 'public opinion' was Jurgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). Habermas asserted that in the period following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, an unprecedented phenomenon was seen in the 'people's public use of their reason' (Habermas, 27). He identifies a correlation between an emerging bourgeois public sphere and the 'Golden Age' of coffee-houses and salons between 1680 and 1730, establishments which had a specific 'social function' as centers of criticism and intellectual debate (32). (For more on the social functions of the coffee-houses, see Coffee). Habermas interestingly overlooks the fact that the coffee-houses and salons of the 'Golden Age' were prefigured by 'chocolate houses.'
The chocolate houses of eighteenth century London were numerous and diverse. Some of the most exclusive establishments were located around St. James' Square in London. Along St. James' Street, White's and Ozinda's were the most famous chocolate houses. Frequented by members of the aristocracy, they were often the sites of notoriously decadent and extravagant social gatherings. John Gay makes reference to London's chocolate-houses as venues of immodesty and gambling in The Beggar's Opera, when Mrs. Peachum asks her husband whether Macheath is wealthy or not. Peachum comments how 'the Captain keeps too good company ever to grow rich. Marybone and the chocolate-houses are his undoing' (2793). The prevalence of gambling in the chocolate-houses perpetuated perceptions of chocolate as being a decadent and luxurious commodity consumed by the rich.
Jonathan Swift conveys the infamy of the chocolate-houses in an article published in the Dublin periodical, The Intelligencer. In ‘On Modern Education,’ Swift offers a vehement diatribe of the establishments, characterizing them as hubs of gambling and debauchery, as part of a wider lamentation of the degradation of values and of the nobility in Georgian England. Whilst reflecting upon the lack of education of government ministers, Swift comments: ‘I have heard, of the late Earl of Oxford, in the Time of his Ministry, never passed by White’s Chocolate-House (the common Rendezvous of infamous Sharpers, and noble Cullies) without bestowing a Curse upon that famous Academy, as the Bane of half the English Nobility’ (Swift, 226). Here an archetypal trope of Swift’s satire is seen in the denunciation of the degeneracy of the hereditary aristocratic classes. Jacobite satire frequently suggested that the nobility degenerated in the aftermath of the post-1688 Settlement under the Williamite and Hanoverian governments and the chocolate-house becomes a motif of such degeneracy in Swift's polemics. It is presented here as a symbol of the corruption of the times and is a place where a degenerated aristocracy assume the behaviour of ‘sharpers’ (swindlers). The negative characterization of chocolate house visitors is seen elsewhere in eighteenth-century literature. In ‘Adventures of a Blackcoat,’ the Blackcoat recounts how one roguish owner consumed a dish of cocoa before going off ‘without interruption or paying for his chocolate’ (120). This deceptive and scheming villain seems to represent what Swift portrays as the archetypal chocolate house customer.
Exclusion from Habermas: Unlike the coffee-houses of eighteenth century England which were hubs of middle class debate, the chocolate houses were perceived as being more exclusive establishments, frequented by members of aristocratic classes. Habermas' study historicizes the concept of public opinion through focusing on democratized public spaces. The coffee-houses and salons are, therefore, more useful to his method. The emergence of the bourgeois public sphere is linked to the perceived democratic nature of the coffee-houses which 'preserved a kind of social intercourse that, far from pre-supposing the equality of status, disregarded status altogether' (Habermas, 36). The chocolate houses, as the preserve of the social elite, are not compatible with his theoretical framework. Having said this, there is some evidence to suggest that the chocolate-houses might have played at least a peripheral role in the construction of the modern democratic state. Historians have suggested that 'The Cocoa Tree' on Pall Mall acted as the Tories' unofficial meeting-place at a time when the party was banned, signifying their importance as centers of political debate at a historical moment when the emergence of party politics and the notion of an established opposition led to a heightened political awareness. Even if they weren't equal to the coffee-houses as spaces of democratized rational-critical discourse, therefore, they still played an important part in the development of the modern democratic state.
6. Part of a set of 11 chocolate cups used in a chocolate house of the 18th century. The ornate decorative designs and Italian glazing reflect the fact that chocolate houses were more exclusive establishments in contrast to the coffee-houses
Other references: Chocolate and (Un)Sociability in Turner
Food and drink are extremely important elements in Thomas Turner’s diary as their consumption drives the formation of connections and facilitates social contact. Turner and his wife are extremely sociable individuals, evidenced by the fact that they often share meals with friends and use food and drink to solidify social bonds. The omnipresence of consumption in Turner’s entries is of anthropological significance as social gatherings are almost consistently marked by the consumption of tea, coffee, roast beef, bacon, goose and vegetables. (Alcohol in particular plays a vital role in the formation and maintenance of friendships and its significance for sociability is fascinating. See Gin). In contrast to the consumption of these commodities, however, chocolate doesn’t appear to have the same social aspect to its character. We know that Turner drinks chocolate by the fact that he mentions having consumed it before watching a cricket match: ‘I neither ate nor drunk when I was gone, nor nothing before I went but dry bread and cocoa, tea and some coffee’ (63). There is, however, no reference to cocoa in social settings. Whereas tea and coffee accompany nearly every social gathering, the consumption of chocolate appears to be a more private experience, detached from the aspect of sociability.
Chocolate consumption in Turner’s diary, therefore, doesn’t appear to drive the formation of social relations in the way the drinking of tea or coffee does. This can be contrasted with a scene in Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides in which Johnson presents the consumption of chocolate as a primary mechanism of sociability. When Boswell and Johnson stay at Ostig with Mr. M’Pherson, Johnson speaks about the English poet Edward Young and contemplates the quarrel Young had with his son because of the poet’s relationship with a clergyman’s widow. Boswell asks Johnson whether there was any physical intimacy between Young and the woman and he responds by saying: ‘no Sir, no more than between two statues. He was past fourscore… She read to him and, I suppose, made his coffee, and frothed his chocolate’ (324). Chocolate consumption is presented here as a mechanism mediating a social relation. In a non-sexual relationship, chocolate consumption assumes the function of physical intimacy and acts as a socializing force, establishing a connection between two people who are otherwise estranged from each other. The relationship is based on nothing more than the mundane routine of everyday life yet, despite this, a connection is maintained through a commodity relation. Johnson is frequently preoccupied with themes of isolation and he often describes a fear of going insane in the absence of company which explains why he is fascinated by the workings of this particular relationship. What he emphasizes here is that relations between people are supported by object relations as Young and his partner relate on the same level through the act of consumption.
Links to relevant websites
http://www.sirhanssloane.com/Hans-Sloane_a/250.htm
http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_museums_story/sir_hans_sloane.aspx
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/10515620/The-surprising-history-of-Londons-lost-chocolate-houses.html
Annotated Bibliography
Secondary Sources
Coe, Sophie D and Michael D Coe. The True History of Chocolate. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996. Print.
The Coe's definitive history of chocolate is a seminal work in the social history of food. They track the commodity's movement through exchange-relations and highlight how the Spanish monopolized the market in the early eighteenth-century. The work attempts to investigate the class implications of cocoa consumption but this element of the socio-historical account is the least developed and generalized assertions tend to characterize the nature of their argument. Wolfgang Schivelbusch's work on stimulants is a more useful piece of scholarship when approaching consumption trends from the perspective of social class.
Cowan, Brian. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Print.
Cowan is primarily concerned with the social history of coffee in the eighteenth-century and its relationship to the emergence of a bourgeoisie public sphere in the coffee-houses. This account is still useful when thinking about other commodities, however, as he investigates the relative values of a wide range of commodities in the 1700s (including chocolate and tea.)
Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. Print.
Habermas' seminal socio-historical work interrogates the historicity of the concept of the public sphere. The Frankfurt School social theorist tracks the development of public opinion in England in the eighteenth-century and argues that the emergence of a bourgeoisie public sphere was linked to the flourishing of coffee-houses and salons in urban spaces which acted as hubs for the development of rational-critical discourse. Habermas interestingly neglects to include chocolate houses in his theoretical framework and this has interesting implications for the idea of class as it corroborates the association between cocoa consumption and the aristocracy.
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Print.
Schivelbusch provides an interesting social history of various foodstuffs including chocolate. His work is particularly useful when thinking about patterns of consumption and their relation to social class. He uses a wide range of evidence from eighteenth-century art and literature to demonstrate the link between the aristocracy and cocoa consumption, emphasizing how coffee was mainly used by the newly emergent bourgeois class. For a particularly insightful account of the class implications of cocoa consumption, see the chapter entitled 'Chocolate, Consumption, Ancien Regime.'
Smith, William-Gervase. Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Smith's comprehensive historical study of cocoa consumption in Europe analyzes the commodity chain and tracks the stages between producer and consumer in the eighteenth-century. Smith uses economic analysis to link the high excise duties placed on chocolate with its status as an 'aristocratic' luxury in an argument that is well-founded and corroborated with a wide range of evidence including artistic representations of cocoa consumption.
Primary Sources
"A collection of several statutes and clauses now in force, relating to the duties upon spirits, malt, candles, sope [sic], callicoes, starch, coffee, tea, chocolate, glass, coaches, and tobacco. With an abridgment of the said statutes and clauses, and a table of the rates upon several commodities, shewing by what acts they are imposed." Edinburgh: printed by Adrian Watkins. 1754. ECCO. Web. 3 March 2015
Government records are extremely useful when assessing the credibility of generalized historical assertions. The generalization that cocoa was probably more expensive than coffee in the eighteenth-century due to a higher level of excise duty being placed on the commodity is problematized by figures in this governmental statute which show that the level of taxation on coffee was similar to that on cocoa-beans. This knowledge has enabled me to critique such generalizations and speculate on other possible factors contributing to the high retail value of chocolate, such as the complex refinement process required to extract paste from cocoa-beans.
Boswell, James and Samuel Johnson. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. London: Penguin, 1984. Print.
Johnson and Boswell’s 1785 travel journal is an account of the pair’s trip to the Scottish Highlands and the Western Islands of Scotland. Johnson’s account is particularly interesting because of his preoccupation with the idea of social connection. He frequently expresses anxiety about being alone and fears that, without conversation, he will go insane. Within this context, it is interesting to look at the role of objects in the journals because they often mediate social relations. The consumption of cocoa becomes a means of establishing and maintaining human connection in this regard.
BRITANNICUS. "Untitled Item." The London Journal.253 (1724): pp. 1-2. London: printed for James Roberts. 1724. ProQuest. Web. 10 Mar. 2015
This article from The London Journal provides an insight into the public's response to the raising of import duties. Writing under the pseudonym of 'BRITANNICUS,' the columnist asserts that it is in the public interest for the Crown to recover the funds lost to the evasion of import taxes. The depiction of tax evasion is most certainly an exaggerated one but it is still useful when speculating on the reasons for the high retail value of cocoa.
Centlivre, Susanna. “A Bold Stroke for a Wife.” The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama gen. ed. J. Douglas Canfield. Peterborough: Broadview, 2001. pp. 903-943.
Fainwell's endeavors to gain Anne Lovely's hand in marriage include having to convince an exchange-broker that he is a suitable match. Centlivre's intrigue comedy thus welcomes the audience into the space of the eighteenth-century stock exchange where commodities are traded, one of which is cocoa. The mention of the object in Centlivre's play has interesting implications for the concepts of globalized commerce and the development of capitalism as it is spoken of in purely monetary terms. Chocolate loses its physical substance and is transformed into an intangible exchange-value.
Cheyne, Dr. George. Dr CHEYNE's Opinion of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate. Newcastle general magazine. 1747: 231-2. Newcastle: 1747. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2015
This eighteenth-century medical paper is unique in the fact that it warns against the possible dangers of excessive chocolate consumption at a time when chocolate was almost universally perceived to be beneficial to health. Dr. Cheyne stood outside mainstream discourse when he urged people to exercise caution in their consumption of the commodity and this paper represents a useful contrast to Hill and Quelus's accounts which emphasize the restorative qualities of cocoa.
Cleland, John. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
A close-reading of passages involving the consumption of chocolate in Cleland's 1748 erotic novel provides good evidence to support the theory that cocoa drinkers tended to be members of the aristocratic classes in eighteenth-century society. The presence of chocolate in 'Fanny Hill' has implications for the protagonist, as Fanny's consumption of cocoa reflects her ability to transcend class structures when working as a prostitute in London.
“Economy. Gedge's price current for Dec. 1800. Catalogue of genuine teas, coffees, chocolate, sugars, spices, ... sold at R. C. Gedge & Co's.” Bury. St. Edmond’s: 1800. ECCO. Web. 2 March 2015.
Retail price indexes from contemporary retailers are useful when assessing generalized historical assertions about price. This advertisement (as well as the one from T. Boot's warehouse) corroborate the assertion that chocolate tended to be more expensive than coffee.
Gay, John. “The Beggar’s Opera.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edn., gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Vol. C: The Restoration and Eighteenth- Century, ed. James Noggle and Lawrence Lipking. New York: Norton, 2012. pp. 2787-2833
Gay's Horatian satire of Walpolean politics represents politicians and aristocrats in an extremely negative light. The motif of the chocolate-house is important to Gay's satire on political corruption and societal inequality in general because it represents a space where the corrupt politician and the petty criminal converge, producing scenes of hedonism and debauchery.
Hill, John. A Description of the CACAO, Or CHOCOLATE-Nut Tree. British magazine, 1746-1751 (1750): 238-40. London: 1750. ProQuest. Web. 10 Mar. 2015
Hill's contemporary description of cocoa-bean harvesting conveys the complexity of the refinement process and is useful when speculating on factors contributing to chocolate's high retail price.
Inchbald, Elizabeth. A Simple Story. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Inchbald's 1791 novel is concerned with notions of gender performativity and the troubling of gender roles. Objects in the novel have an interesting relationship with the theme of social class. Dorriforth's preference for chocolate as opposed to coffee, for example, can be seen to reflect his newly secured position on the upper rungs of the social ladder.
"Lords of the Admiralty to The Earl of Halifax" Calendar of Home Office papers of the reign of George III preserved in Her Majesty's Public Record Office. Ed. Joseph Redington. Vol. 1: 1760-1765 (1765). State Papers Online. Web. 7 March 2015.
Correspondence between an Admiral and the Earl of Halifax reflects the bitterly competitive nature of the cocoa-bean trade in the West Indies. The rivalry between imperial powers in the region is conveyed in the letter.
Rogers, Woodes. A Cruising Voyage Round the World. London: 1712. Empire Online. Web. 14 Feb. 2015.
Roger's travel writings are a useful historical document when thinking about the centrality of the cocoa-bean to the development of globalized commerce. Voyage literature was common in the 1700s and there was strong public demand for the stories of privateers like Rogers and Dampier. On a fundamental level, these narratives demonstrate the link between consumption and globalized trade because entrepreneurial figures like Rogers represent early capitalists seeking to meet the demand for exotic commodities back home.
Sloane, Hans. A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, with the natural history ... of the last of those islands; to which is prefix'd an introduction, wherein is an account of the inhabitants, air, waters, diseases, trade, &c. ... Illustrated with the figures of the things describ'd, By Hans Sloane, ... In two volumes. London: printed by B. M. for the author. 1707. ECCO. Web. 20. Feb. 2015.
Sloane's account of his voyages in the West Indies is a fascinating insight into eighteenth-century exploration. His description of the island of Jamaica is particularly useful for the study of chocolate as we see the origins of the commodity. Sloane played a vital role in the popularization of cocoa in Western society as his decision to mix cocoa-paste with vanilla rendered the substance more palatable for European taste. This account is also an important historical document when thinking about the development of global capitalism as Sloane, in addition to being a physician, was also an entrepreneur who engaged in globalized commerce.
Swift, Jonathan. “Number IX: On Modern Education.” The Intelligencer (1728) Cambridge: Penguin, 2011. Print.
The canon of Swift's political works is extensive and his collaboration with friend Thomas Sheridan in writing this periodical enabled him to continue his socio-political commentary which frequently took aim at ministers of the Walpolean Whig government. The section on chocolate-houses in 'On Modern Education' shows how these establishments were very different to the politicized space of the coffee-house and their aristocratic clientele strengthens the theory that cocoa-drinking was the preserve of the elite.
“Tea, coffee and chocolate, at T. Boot's warehouse, no. 212, in Piccadilly, the corner of Eagle-Street; where the nobility, gentry, and others, may be supplied with some fine fresh teas, coffee and chocolate.” London: 1790. ECCO. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.
This advertisement from the late eighteenth-century shows that chocolate was more expensive than coffee, strengthening the link between cocoa-consumption and the aristocracy.
“The Adventures of a Blackcoat. Containing a Series of Remarkable Occurrences and Entertaining Incidents, that it was Witness to in its Peregrinations thro’ the Cities of London and Westminster, in Company with variety of Characters. As Related by Itself.” British It-Narratives, 1750-1830. Gen. ed. Mark Blackwell. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012.
This It-Narrative enables the reader to explore urban geography from the perspective of an inanimate object. The scene in the chocolate-house is most significant to this study as it corroborates Swift's assertion that chocolate houses were places where morally questionable behavior thrived.
Turner, Thomas. The Diary of Thomas Turner. 1754-1765. Ed. David Vasey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Turner's diary makes incessant reference to the consumption of food and drink. The fact that chocolate is mentioned just once in the text is, therefore, quite surprising and it becomes clear that we can learn more about the commodity's status in the 1700s from its absence rather than its presence in the text because whereas tea and coffee are consumed frequently, chocolate-drinking appears to be more of a novelty.
Quélus, D.The natural history of chocolate. Trans. from the last edition of the French, by R. Brookes, M.D. London: 1725. ECCO. Web. 25 Jan 2015.
This eighteenth-century historical study of chocolate emphasizes the medicinal properties of the cocoa-bean and argues that consumption is beneficial to health. It is important to this study because it highlights how people in the 1700s saw the drink as a restorative as opposed to a mere luxury.
Images
1. Jacob Henriques. Jonathan's Coffee House or an Analysis of Change Alley with a group of Characters from the Life. Engraving. British Museum. London. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=367356&objectId=3078490&partId=1>
2. Jean Étienne-Liotard. Lady Pouring Chocolate. 1744. Royal Academy of Arts, London. Web. 27 Dec. 2014.
<http://gandalfsgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/jean-etienne-liotard-lady-pouring.html>
3. Jean Étienne-Liotard. The Chocolate Girl. 1744. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden. Web. 27 Dec. 2014.
<http://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/de/contents/showSearch?id=451033>
4. Nicholas Lancret. The Four Times of Day: Morning. c.1739. National Gallery, London. Web. 2 March, 2015
<http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/nicolas-lancret-the-four-times-of-day-morning>
5. Pietro Longhi. The Morning Chocolate. Slide Gallery, Uni of California, San Diego. Artstor. Web. 15 Feb. 2015
<http://www.http://library.artstor.org/library/#3%7Csearch%7C1%7Cpietro20longhi20morning%7CMultiple20Collection20Search%7C%7C%7Ctype3D3126kw3Dpietro20longhi20morning26id3Dall26name3DAll20Collections26origKW3D>
6. Three Tin-Glazed earthenware chocolate cups. Photograph. British Museum, London. Web. 10 Jan 2015.
<http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps357821.jpg&retpage=20972>
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