Artz of Hot Chocolate

I was at Live Artz on Wednesday when I ordered the Azteca. A hot chocolate spice infused cup of warm yumminess.  I started wondering about hot chocolate in Art so, I looked and I found some.  But first a little history….

                               An Aztec woman pouring chocolate from a standing position to raise the foam

About 2000 years ago the Mayans created a chocolate beverage which became an essential part of the Aztec culture. Cocoa seeds were ground into a paste, along with chili peppers, vanilla, other spices and water. It was then poured from cup to cup, much like a shaken martini, until it became foamy, at which point it was drunk. Sugar had not yet been introduced so it was not the sweet creamy beverage we know.

                                              Azetc Hot Chocolate

The Spanish brought the cocoa beans and the skill to make the beverage back to Europe where it became very popular among the Spanish nobility. By the 17thh century the hot cocoa was sweetened and it became a drink reserved for European nobility. Near the end of the 17^th century milk was added and it became the favorite of the English Nobility. The Dutch brought hot chocolate to the United States in the early 17^th century.

                                      Spanish, ceramic tiles, The laborious process of making chocolate

This week the Artz of Hot Chocolate

Artz Eudora

My ghost hunting this weekend has brought me to my Aunt Eudora. She is actually my second cousin, Eudora Alice Welty. 

Her grandmother and my great grandmother were sisters. 

Eudora's Mother

                                       My Great Grandmother

I met her once at her home in Mississippi. My grandmother and she had shared several summer vacations together in West Virginia. She used to tell me I reminded her of Eudora.

 Miss Welty was an author of novels and short stories. She was a photographer. She won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973 for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter.  She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many other awards and honors.

This week The Artz Council presents art inspired by Eudora Alice Welty.

Enjoy!