1812 Hot Chocolate
There is nothing like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day and that also applied to Sailor aboard a ship. This recipe comes from an 1814 book called âThe Artistâs Companion, and Manufacturerâs Guide, Consisting of the Most Valuable Secrets in Arts and Trades.â It is similar to what is called âMexican Hot Chocolateâ today. While officers may have had access to the somewhat exotic ingredients needed for this recipe, sailors probably made do with sugar and water. Mrs. Child, in The American Frugal Housewife (1833), suggests that nutmeg improves the taste of chocolate, and since this was a common spice, seamen could have grated it into their cups.
A receipt for making chocolate:
Ingredients: Cocoa Sugar in cubes (lump sugar) Water or milk
Optional: Vanilla Cinnamon Nutmeg Mexican Pepper Cloves
Tools: Stove Pot Spoon Wax paper
1. In a copper pan, mix a little powdered royal cube sugar with a little orange water. When the sugar has turned into a syrup, add the cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, Mexican pepper and cloves. cloves, all of which are previously crushed to an intangible powder. into an intangible powder. Stir everything well while it is boiling; and when you have pour the paste onto a very smooth and polished table polished table [use wax paper to let the paste cool], so that you can so that you can roll it and give it a shape that you like.
2. To prepare it with either milk or water, in which, when boiling hot, you first dissolve it, then, with a box-mill, with a long handle, you mill it to froth in the pot in which it is making, and pour it afterwards in cups to drink.â
Serves 1 cup of liquid (water or milk) to 1 person. Sugar, cocoa and spices to taste.
Not only is raw cocoa actually very healthy and contains a considerable amount of caffeine, it also lifts the spirits and was therefore popular among the various navies as a pick-me-up, even though it was very expensive at the time. But in this respect, no one let themselves down and allowed their sailors this kind of luxury.Â
Davout wasn't a sailor, but the time fits so who knows, he might have used this kind of recipe to brew himself hot cocoa. Technically he might have had someone do it for him, but from what I think about him after reading the biography ... dunno, he seems the kind to do it himself to make sure it was 100% the way he liked it. Unless he had an extremly trusted assistant ...



















