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Spices
According to the OED, the word “allspice” is first used in 1621 and “vanilla” in 1662. Both
are from the New World. They might have been used earlier in Spain or Italy, since South
American foods seem to have reached those countries earlier than England.
Cocoa
A drink made from cocoa was drunk by the Aztecs; according to the Larousse, it was
unsweetened, flavored with vanilla, and drunk cold. Cocoa was brought back by the Spaniards in
the sixteenth century; they flavored it “with chillies and other hot spices” and made it “into a
soup-like concoction.” The first recorded use of chocolate in England was in 1650; Wadsworth
published a recipe, apparently translated from Spanish, in 1652.
Black cites chocolate almonds being produced by 1670 and the use of chocolate “to flavour
little light cakes called ‘puffs’” and as a dinner dessert, with one recipe dating from 1681.
Clotilde Vesco gives several recipes using chocolate which she dates to the fifteenth century (!)
and attributes to documents in Florentine archives, if I correctly interpret the passage, but she
gives little information about the originals and I suspect has either misdated or mistranslated
them. Perhaps some reader whose Italian is better than mine can pursue the matter further.
The OED gives the first use of “Chocolate” in English as 1604, in a history of the Indies.
References to drinking it start in the 1660's. The word “Cocoa” appears much later.
My conclusion is that a drink made from cocoa beans is in period, at least for Spanish
personae, although the drink would be very different from modern cocoa, but that the use of
chocolate as a food or an ingredient in foods is probably out of period.
Turkeys
The first reference to turkeys in the OED is in 1555. According to the Larousse, Brillat-
Savarin says that turkeys came into use in Europe in the 17th century. There seems to have been
some confusion initially with the guinea fowl, which is an Old World bird; it is therefore hard to
be certain which early mentions of turkeys refer to what we now call turkeys. It seems likely,
however, that turkeys were being eaten in Europe before 1600.
References
Batchelor, Leon D. and Webber, Herbert John, The Citrus Industry, 1946.
Black, Maggie, “Seventeenth Century Chocolate,” in Petits Propos Culinaires, 14, June 1983.
Coe, Sophie, articles on Aztec and Inca food in Petits Propos Culinaires, 19, 20, 21, and 29.
Crosby, Alfred W. Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492,
Greenwood Publishing, Westport CT, 1972.
Dewitt, Dave and Gerlach, Nancy, The Whole Chile Pepper Book, Little, Brown Co., Boston
1990.
Finan, John J., Maize in the Great Herbals. Chronica Botanica Company, Waltham, Mass. 1950.
Hattox, Ralph S., Coffee and Coffeehouses, The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval
Near East, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1985.
Higgins, B. B., “Origin and Early History of the Peanut” in The Peanut–The Unpredictable
Legume, A Symposium, The National Fertilizer Association, Washington, D.C. 1951.
Longone, Jan, From the Kitchen, The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle Vol. 3 No. 2
1987-88. My principal source on tomatoes.