When Chocolate was Medicine: Colmenero, Wadsworth, and Dufour

By Christine Jones

Chocolate has not always been the common confectionary we experience today. When it first arrived from the Americas into Europe in the 17th century it was a rare and mysterious substance, thought more of as a drug than as a food. Christine Jones traces the history and literature of its reception. more

Pods, Pots, and Potions: Putting Cacao to Paper in Early Modern Europe

By Christine Jones

Christine Jones explores the different ways the cacao tree has been depicted through history — from 16th-century codices to 18th-century botanicals — and what this changing iconography reveals about cacao’s journey into European culture. more