Chapter 44

Author: Bertram Gordon

Title: Chinese Chocolate: Ambergris, Emperors, and Export Ware.

Although historical accounts often suggest that chocolate was unknown until recently in China, it appears to have been present there as early as the 17th century. The Jesuits are said to have included gifts of chocolate to the Jiangnan elite in China in the 1670s, and Spanish Franciscan monks used it "as a present for Chinese prominent people." The diffusion pattern for chocolate from Latin America to China -most likely to the Chinese court seems to have been along the routes traveled by the Franciscans, probably with the Philippines as an intermediate point. That the Chinese were at the least aware of chocolate in the early 18th century is suggested by the Dutch East India Company's Chinese export porcelain trade records, which list chocolate cups for trade. At least three 19th century French sources, beginning in 1817, mention "Chinese chocolate," also referred to as "vacaca chinorum," described as a steeped beverage with spices added. The French references to Chinese chocolate mention the use of ambergris, an excretion from the sperm whale and a flavored and oily binder. As an oily sweet perfume or flavoring, such as rose water and butter or rancid butter, and a kind of waxy binder, ambergris would be typically used in a sweet dish, such as chocolate, and it seems to have played the role that milk later assumed in milk chocolate. The culinary niche for ambergris was also ended by industrialization. Since the popularity of chocolate has been based on milk chocolate since 1875, the absence of a local dairy industry in China limits its role in the local culinary.

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