The Georgian Chocolatier Grace Tosier - and some Historical Chocolate Trivia

Q –      When was the first chocolate bar created?

Was it: 1649, 1749, 1849 or 1949?

Answer at the end of this post!

In last week’s post about the awesome chocolate kitchen at Hampton Court Palace, we were introduced to Thomas Tosier – chocolatier to King George I. But the story doesn’t end there as Thomas had an enterprising wife, Grace Tosier, who was something of a phenomena in her own rite.

Grace Tosier with her trade mark wide brimmed hat and
posy of flowers at her bosom.

Grace seems a larger than life character. A portrait of her exists which shows a jolly looking woman wearing the trade mark large brimmed hat and a posy of flowers in her bosom. Whilst her husband worked for the king at Hampton Court Palace, she ran a successful chocolate house in Greenwich.

In the 18^th century chocolate houses were a bye word amongst the upper classes for luxury, sophistication and good company. Grace was canny enough to recognize that when it came to cocoa and Tosier’s links to the king, their surname was a brand to be reckoned with. Indeed, when her husband died and eventually she remarried, she valued it enough to retain the name Grace Tosier.

The chocolate kitchen at Hampton Court Palace -
it was here that the actual cup of hot chocolate was created.

Grace’s story is interwoven with the history of chocolate. Historically, the invention of chocolate bars is relatively recent, and for two thousand years cocoa was consumed as a beverage. The practice first took place in Mexico, when the court of Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, consumed a post-prandial chalice of chocolate which was decanted from one vessel to another until it gained a frothy head.

To create the beverage the sun-dried, roasted in earthen pots, the shells removed and the kernels ground over a fire. The heat turned the powder to a paste, the flavouring added and the mix formed into cakes which was left on banana leaves to dry ready for storage. To make the drinking chocolate the cakes were crumbled into water, heated and whipped up.

Cocoa pods and beans.
The cocoa harvest was considered unreliable and so the plants
were grown beneath banana trees for a second revenue stream.

The Aztecs gave chocolate to warriors in blocks coloured with annatto, a red dye, which stained the lips and tongue in symbolism of human blood (the Aztecs and Mayans had a penchant for human sacrifice!)

“The lips and part of the face around them, are covered with the foam, and when it has been coloured with annatoo it looks horrific because it is just like blood.”

Gonzalez de Oviedo, writing in the 16^th century.

For a long period the Spanish kept hot chocolate secret with such success that when in 1579 British buccaneers stopped a Spanish ship, they tipped the cargo of cocoa beans overboard as worthless. But by 1660 the Europeans had cottoned on to what they were missing and drinking chocolate became hugely popular.

Books of recipes appeared as early as 1609, as people experimented with ideas such as replacing cornmeal as a thickener, with ground almonds. The Aztec frothiness was mimicked by using a special swizzle stick, or molinillo, and indeed later chocolate pots can be told apart from coffee pots by the hole in the lid through which the molinillo was inserted.

Hot chocolate pots on display at the chocolate
kitchens at Hampton Court Palace

In the mid 17^th century via a succession of royal marriages chocolate drinking crossed through Spain, Portugal, Italy, France on its way to England. The drink was sold in chocolate shops which were an environment for the wealthy to discuss business and some gained reputations for being breeding grounds for radical politics. In 1675 King Charles II felt so threatened by the hotbed of chocolate houses that for a short time he closed them down. One can imagine the uproar of the public being deprived of chocolate – and they soon reopened.

And finally, the answer to the teaser question:

Q –      When was the first chocolate bar created?

Was it: 1649, 1749, 1849 or 1949?

Answer at the end of this post!

A –      1849

            The first chocolate bars were not announced with a fanfare, but created as a means of using up waste products left over from the manufacture of cocoa powder for hot chocolate drinks.

King George, the Chocolatier and Hampton Court Palace

Last week, I was privileged to preview the rediscovered ‘Chocolate Kitchen’ at Hampton Court Palace.  On a blustery, wet day my twin loves of history and chocolate fused (if there’d been a cat padding round - utter perfection!)

 

A blustery day at Hampton Court Palace

The story behind the rooms is that of a king who loved hot chocolate. Out of his own purse (rather than the publicly funded privy purse), King George I employed a personal chocolatier, Thomas Tosier. It was Tosier’s job to roast and grind the cocoa beans, mix them into the rich spicy blend and serve it to his king.

 

The room where the actual cup of cocoa would be prepared.
In recent times used as a storeroom and now restored to its Georgian function.

Way before the days of instant hot chocolate, to create the perfect cup of cocoa cost a small fortune and was a hallmark of wealth and opulence. The expenses incurred by the royal household paid for out of the Privy Purse were well documented, but because Tosier was a private employee, no such records existed. It was therefore a matter of detective work for the HistoricRoyal Palaces (HRP) restoration team to discover the location of Tosier’s kitchens.

 

The room where the beans were roasted

The rooms were eventually located in the Baroque part of the palace, the Fountain Court. This is a short walk away from the main Tudor kitchen, which prevented the precious cocoa beans from being tainted by the smell of meat and fish. In all, there are three chocolate rooms. The first for roasting and preparing the beans, has a rare Georgian folding table, original shelving, a smoke jack for roasting and charcoal ovens. The second room contains the equipment and spices for grinding and blending. The third kitchen was where the final cup of cocoa would be created, complete with authentic reproductions of Georgian cocoa cups.

 

Beans being ground over on a granite slab
over a low heat.

Tosier’s famous skill came from knowing if the finer he ground the beans, the more flavor was released. He used a saddle shaped granite slab with a low heat beneath, and a granite rolling pin, to grind the beans. Then he added spices such as grains of paradise, chilies, aniseed and all spice, to create the flavor favored by the king. Georgian hot chocolate was less sweet, and spicier than the modern palate is accustomed to. 

The Fountain Court -
away from the smell of the busy main kitchens.

Indeed, the modern visitor can use all of his/her senses and taste hot chocolate through the ages (Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and modern) by purchasing a tasting platter at the café. [As a chocoholic myself, I was surprised at how much I preferred the Stuart cocoa – with its chilli, pepper and cardamom taste – compared to the more familiar Victorian flavor that was sickly sweet to say the least.]

 

The hot chocolate tasting platter.
From left to right:
Modern, Victorian, Georgian and Stuart cocoas.

Hampton Court Palace is hugely evocative of Tudor history, but with opening of the Georgian Tudor chocolate kitchen a new dimension has been added. In contrast to the pies and meat associated with the impressive Tudor kitchens (worth a visit in their own right), the visitor glimpses the sophistication and opulence of the 18^th century. The opening of the ChocolateKitchen is part of a wider celebration of the Georgians taking place across the Historic Royal Palaces in 2014 – to mark the 300^th anniversary of George I’s Accession to the British throne.

Many thanks to the lovely people at the Historic RoyalPalaces for giving me the opportunity to preview the kitchens.

Next week’s post is a more personal look at Thomas Tosier and his wife, Grace.

Grace Tosier - wife of Thomas
More of her next week.