Making Chocolate in the British Atlantic World: Foodways, Consumption and Heritage

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This PhD studentship will explore early modern chocolate between the late sixteenth and eighteenthcenturies: where the ingredients for this drink were grown and harvested; how they were sourcedand imported, who purchased them and at what price. It will explore how ideas about chocolate,including its origins in First Nations (Native or Indigenous American) culture and its cultivation byenslaved women and men of African descent, influenced conceptions of race, nationality, and BlackBritish history.Despite the prevalence and popularity of chocolate in the period, surprisingly little has been done totrace either its patterns of consumption or the ways it was imagined, intellectually andiconographically. Ingredients for chocolate - which was consumed as a hot beverage flavoured withchilli, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar - were sourced from around the globe, and the Britishpublic associated the drinks with exoticism and the 'otherness' of the empire, playing a key role inthe 'consumer revolution' of the period.To better understand the full nuance of chocolate's presence and legacy in Britain, the studentworking on this project will undertake a project on the 'long history' of early modern chocolate,working in multiple archives and utilising many different types of historical evidence. This willinclude an investigation of the chocolate kitchens built at Hampton Court Palace, Kew Palace (HRP)and Dyrham Park (NT) which attest to the drink's importance in the period, and provide importantinformation about its consumption and cultural circulation. Dyrham's rich collections, which includea notable painting of a cacao tree dating from the late seventeenth century, will help this studentbetter understand the reception and marketing of chocolate in the period.