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Of the Chocolate-Maker

posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 11:47am on 19/04/2005 under , , , ,
Chocolate is made of Cocoa, the Product of the West-Indies. It is stripped of its Shell, or rather Husk, and wrought upon a Stone over a Charcoal Fire till it is equally mellow, and then put into Moulds, which shapes it into Cakes. To perfume it they mix it with Venello.

It is a hot laborious Business, but does not require much Ingenuity. Journey men's Wages is from Twelve to Fifteen Shillings a Week, but are not employed much in Summer. They require Heat to work with, but cold Weather is necessary to dry it.


From R. Campbell, esq. The London Tradesman. Being an Historical Account of All the Trades, Professions, Arts, both Liberal and Mechanic, now practised in the Cities of London and Westminster. Calculated for the Instruction of Youth in their Choice of Business. (London: T. Gardner, 1757). Chp. 69. Sec. 9. p. 280.
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There are 7 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] aerinah.livejournal.com at 03:45pm on 19/04/2005
Mmm. I love the smell of Venello. :P
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] crustycurmudgeo.livejournal.com at 05:30pm on 19/04/2005
I thought there was bean fermentation process before the roast and grind. Maybe I'm thinking of coffee.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] crustycurmudgeo.livejournal.com at 05:36pm on 19/04/2005
Ok, I was right.. http://smccd.net/accounts/case/chocolate.html

But I think the fermentation was done on the plantation so the work described would be that done in England.
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owlfish: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 05:49pm on 19/04/2005
The person who wrote this wasn't overly knowledge about chocolate production. His real interest is in an overview of how physically or intellectually challenging different jobs are and how much they pay. Indeed, this section on chocolate is about as short as his sections on different jobs get. Some of them go on for pages.
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It's been bugging me for years...

posted by [identity profile] suslikuk.livejournal.com at 11:46am on 21/04/2005
...why did they use Capitals for most, but not all, nouns? Is it a carry-over from the Germanic roots of English? Why aren't "business" or "wages" capitalised?
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owlfish: (Default)

Re: It's been bugging me for years...

posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 12:19pm on 21/04/2005
In general, I don't know. I can see using a lower case letter if they ran out of upper case typeface to set it with. It's a good question.

In specific, now that I look at my hand-written notes from which I copied this passage more carefully, I see that you are right, and I was in error in typing both "business" and "wages" in lower case. I will correct it.
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owlfish: (Default)

Re: It's been bugging me for years...

posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 12:24pm on 21/04/2005
Oh, and on Germanic roots, that would make sense, as the only other language family I know which ever capitalized nouns. But that doesn't really answer the bigger question - why did German start capitalizing its nouns? And why did printed English pick up on it for a while?
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