[2.3.3] Event in SI is incorrect

[Jorlem]

In this event:

"chocolate" is described as sweet. However, the cacoa based drink made by the Mayans and Aztecs was actually rather bitter. In real life, when the conquistadors introduced the drink in Europe, they added large amounts of sugar to make the drink palatable to European tastes, greatly sweetening it. That portion of the text should be reworded to reflect that the sweet version is a European variation, or at least acknowledge that the drink is actually bitter.

 

[Dracko81]

The Aztecs had already mastered Chocolate before settling in Europe?

 

[Jorlem]

The Aztecs had already mastered Chocolate before settling in Europe?

A drink made from cacao was drunk for centuries by the Aztecs and Mayans. It was the Europeans who added sugar or honey to it, to counter the bitter taste. Heck, the word xocolātl, which is the origin of the word chocolate, actually means "bitter water".

 

[Dracko81]

You missed the point. An empire that spans North America and central America, that had the power to settle Europe during the middle ages, could have changed a simple drink and had numerous versions of it. Limiting the idea that it is the one and the same drink drunk by historical Aztecs is wrong.

 

[Jorlem]

You missed the point. An empire that spans North America and central America, that had the power to settle Europe during the middle ages, could have changed a simple drink and had numerous versions of it. Limiting the idea that it is the one and the same drink drunk by historical Aztecs is wrong.

My point hinges on the fact that the word means "bitter water". If there was a version that was sweet, it would have a different name.

 

[G-Flex]

Eh, the event text could always be describing the European version of it, which they've already sweetened to their own taste.

 

[Dracko81]

My point hinges on the fact that the word means "bitter water". If there was a version that was sweet, it would have a different name.

Yet it is still called chocolate today... Which is wrong and should have a different name?

 

[Jorlem]

Yet it is still called chocolate today... Which is wrong and should have a different name?

Because the word "chocolate" is, as I posted before, a loan word based off the word xocolātl, which is actually in the Aztec's language. If the drink made from cacoa that reaches Europe is sweet, the Aztecs would be calling it something other than xocolātl, so it wouldn't be called chocolate by the Europeans, but something echoing whatever the Aztecs called it. IRL, the drink that reached Europe via the Spanish explorers was xocolātl, which became known as chocolate. Sweeteners were added, and they kept calling it chocolate (or the Spanish equivalent), because to them it didn't mean "bitter water", just "stuff made from cacao".

 

[Dracko81]

Which proves that it should be called chocolate regardless. There are numerous types of Coffee, with different flavours, different sweetners and even additives. Some even use water only or milk only. They are all coffee.

Why would adding an additive change chocolate - a Europeanised word - simply because they added something to it. "Chocolate" is "chocolate".

 

[Jorlem]

Which proves that it should be called chocolate regardless. There are numerous types of Coffee, with different flavours, different sweetners and even additives. Some even use water only or milk only. They are all coffee.

Why would adding an additive change chocolate - a Europeanised word - simply because they added something to it. "Chocolate" is "chocolate".

Because the word "chocolate" is the Europeanised version of the word xocolātl. If the drink that the Aztecs bring over is not called xocolātl, then Europeans will not have encountered the word, or at least they will not associate it with the sweet drink the Aztecs brought, so the word that the Europeans use for this drink would be a Europeanised word based on whatever word the Aztecs use for this version of the drink.

 

[Dracko81]

Why would they rename a beverage because they added something to it? It is still the same thing, it just has an additive.

 

[Jorlem]

Why would they rename a beverage because they added something to it? It is still the same thing, it just has an additive.

Because the name of the beverage literally means "Bitter Water". The additive means that it is no longer bitter, but sweet, which would mean that the part of the word that means "bitter" would be changed. The Aztec "name" is a description.

 

[Dracko81]

No it's the name derived from meaning.

You don't just change its name because it's derived meaning is different. This is why it is still called chocolate today.

 

[Jorlem]

No it's the name derived from meaning.

You don't just change its name because it's derived meaning is different. This is why it is still called chocolate today.

You are missing my point. "Chocolate" is a name. Xocolātl is not, it is a description, a compound word, like mailman, or newsman, or philosopher, or bibliophile. Xococ, meaning "bitter" or "sour", and ātl, meaning "water". In its original usage, it was not a name, and IRL the Europeans turned it into one when they borrowed the word. In the SI scenario, the Aztec traders in the event would either be approaching the Europeans with a sweet drink that they would not be describing as "bitter", or the traditional bitter drink that they would be.

 

[Dracko81]

So you are saying the Europeans learnt the language of the natives and made up a word to name something. I doubt it, they would of been told what it was. They then used that same name for the drink and later changed it into its more common term.

The name existed for the drink before Europeans arrived, just like it would of existed before the Aztecs colonised Europe. Were it sweet is complete conjecture, but there is no reason to believe that a sweetner couldn't of been added in a large empire.

 

[Servancour]

While I could ask the scripters about it, I don't really see any reason to change the current text. Yes, it would perhaps give the history behind "chocolate" in more detail. But that is hardly the main point of the event.

 

[grisamentum]

An important thing to note here is that the Americas do not have native sugar cane. The Spanish were able to invent sweetened chocolate drinks because they had sugar.

However, Spain only began producing sugar in the mid-15th century. Sugar was an extremely expensive import until then. Since the Aztecs only land between 1250 and 1350, and the food event fires within around 10 years of their landing (MTTH 220 months), it simply doesn't make sense that sweet drinking chocolate would be known to anyone in Western Europe at that time. Nobody in Europe had anything to sweeten the chocolate with. Even in the real world, sweetened hot chocolate was not invented until the 17th century because of the expense of sugar and cocoa.

(I suppose if the Aztecs make it to India, where sugar cane was being cultivated in the 13th century... but anyway.)

The event should absolutely refer to chocolate as a bitter drink. By contrast, nobody calls "coffee" sweet even though most people drink it with milk and sugar.

 

[Dracko81]

Sugar is not the only sweetner. Honey was used by the majority of the world before sugar became common place.

 

[grisamentum]

Sugar is not the only sweetner. Honey was used by the majority of the world before sugar became common place.

Not for making drinking chocolate it wasn't. And for good reason: honey will not dissolve into chocolate as well as sugar. In fact, hot chocolate as a sweetened drink did not become popular until sugar was available.

As I already said.

 

[Dracko81]

Doesn't mean they could not have done so. It would still work and since we are talking alternative history you can't use real history as proof.