This groundbreaking volume explores two early and opposing Spanish medical perspectives on chocolate and other New World substances. In the early 1600s, doctors Bartolomé Marradón and Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma returned from travels to the Americas with starkly different views: Marradón cautioned against tobacco and offered only limited approval of chocolate, while Colmenero vigorously defended chocolate’s health benefits. Their writings, translated and circulated across Europe, helped transform chocolate from a medicinal drink into a global commodity. Featuring the first bilingual edition of Marradón’s Dialogue (1618)—in full Spanish and English—and a new bilingual presentation of Colmenero’s influential Curious Treatise (1631), this book provides rare insight into early modern medical thought, cultural exchange, and the globalization of taste. Essential for readers of food history, early modern medicine, and transatlantic interchange, it uniquely reveals how debates over health, culture, and commerce brewed in a cup of chocolate.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
"An absolute delight to read. Scholars and foodies alike will find this work both stimulating and revelatory.”
“This volume offers excellent bilingual (Spanish and English) editions of two influential seventeenth-century tracts in New World pharmacology as well as useful historical discussions of their cultural contexts and reception in Europe. As such, this volume will be of interest to both the historiography and pedagogy of early modern science, medicine, and the rise of a global consumer culture.”
“This new edition and translation of the texts of Marradón and Colmenero will shed light on the lives and works of the two doctors, furthering our understanding of the reception of chocolate in Spain and around Europe.”
“This research examines one of the earliest medical debates regarding the benefits of chocolate, a new beverage spreading from Spain through the rest of Europe. The author includes texts of the 1600s debate in their original Spanish as well as English translation. The work should be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about centuries of debate over the health benefits of chocolate—a debate that continues today.”
List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1
PART I The Doctors’ Times and Views 1 The Two “Doctors” 7 2 Marradón and Colmenero: The Scientific and Social Contexts for Their Works 11 3 Audience and Aims of the Works 36 4 The Openings of the Treatises by Marradón and Colmenero 39 5 Authority, Argument, and Portrayal of the Other: Marradón’s Consideration of Tobacco, Chocolate, and Several Medicinal Spirits 44 6 Authority, Argument, and Portrayal of the Other: Colmenero’s Consideration of Chocolate 51 7 Scholarly Attention to Marradón and Colmenero 58
PART II The Two Works’ Impact 8 Translations Beyond the Borders of Spain 65 9 Localization in England and Wadsworth’s Translation: Chocolate Marketing to the Many for Health and Pleasure 68 10 Localization in France and the Translations by Moreau and Dufour: Patriotic Pride, Medical Advice, and Botanical Information for Doctors and “All Who Love Their Health” 77 11 Relocalization in England and Chamberlayne’s Translation: For “All Good Men” to Understand the “Excellent Vertues” of Foreign Drugs and “to Admire and Bless” the Creator 96 12 Translation as a Project of Localization 102 13 Note About Style 107
PART III The Two Doctors’ Works 14 Diálogo del uso del Tabaco, los daños y provechos que el tiempo y experiencia an descubierto de sus efectos, y del Chocolate, y otras bevidas, que en estos tiempos se usan 111 By Bartolomé Marradón 15 Dialogue on the Use of Tobacco, the Harms and Benefits That Time and Experience Have Discovered About Its Effects, and on Chocolate, and Other Beverages That Are Used in These Times 132 By Bartolomé Marradón 16 Curioso tratado de la naturaleza y calidad del chocolate, dividido en quatro puntos 155 By Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma 17 A Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate, Divided into Four Points 169 By Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
Acknowledgments 185 Notes 187 Bibliography 207 Index 217
SUSAN G. POLANSKY is a teaching professor emerita of Hispanic studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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