Chocolate was originally a bitter, spicy drink from Latin America. In the 1500s, the Spanish added sugar, cinnamon, and other spices to it.
By the 1650’s, chocolate became a popular luxury drink in England. People started gathering in English coffeehouses, like the one shown on the right. They drank chocolate and coffee and smoked tobacco.
Try this seventeenth-century recipe for hot chocolate! Ask an adult to help you.
Seventeenth-Century Chocolate
Based on a recipe published in England in 1652
1 ½ tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1 to 2 drops pure anise extract
1 cup milk
Optional: 1 small dash cayenne (ground red pepper)
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Set it aside.
Pour the milk into a small pan. Stir in the cocoa mixture and anise extract. With an adult’s help, heat the milk until steaming, while continuing to stir.
(Or, you can pour the milk into a mug and heat it on high in the microwave for 1 ½ minutes. Then stir in the cocoa mixture and anise extract.)
Makes one cup of chocolate.
Adapted from:
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 ... / written originally in Spanish, by Antonio Colminero of Ledesma ... ; and faithfully rendred in the English by Capt. James Wadsworth., London : Printed by J.G. for Iohn Dakins ..., 1652
