Chapter 10

Author: Amanda Lange

Title: Chocolate Preparation and Serving Vessels in Early North America.

The equipage for drinking chocolate in America can be roughly divided according to media: silver, base metals (brass, copper, iron, pewter), and ceramic wares.  This chapter will explore from a chronological perspective imported ceramics for the service of chocolate in America. Early American potteries, concentrating mainly on utilitarian redware and stoneware, produced little in the way of refined ceramics for the service of expensive drinking chocolate. Most often these vessels were imported from England, China, France, and later Bavaria (what would become Germany). Using probate inventories, account books, pattern books, objects with American histories, trade catalogues and pictorial sources, this chapter will illustrate what types of ceramic vessels were used by Americans for the service of chocolate from 1700 to 1900, and how these forms changed over time, Prominent Americans such as General Henry Knox, George and Martha Washington, and Thomas Jefferson are well known for their passion for chocolate drinking, and many of their original objects still survive. These forms would include chocolate pots, chocolate cups and saucers, and chocolate stands, as well as the evolution of entire porcelain sets for chocolate drinking popular in the late nineteenth century.

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