Aurkezpenak eta eztabaidak. Kakaoa = Presentaciones y debates. Cacao

To urge on and start this conversation, we have invited people from different areas with different profiles, with the intention of doing a tour of the many directions and junctions along which the subject of stimulants will take us. As stated in the introduction, the subject of stimulants has many nuances and folds: new theories about colonialism, hidden relationships between the biological body and the political economy, appetite and health, modern and contemporary notions of space and the public issue...among others. Tables are organised around various substances: tobacco, sugar, coffee and cocoa. Contributions made by the guests will lead to conversation.

Of the wide range of stimulants popularised since the 16th century, cocoa and chocolate have the particularity of being nutritious substances, causing their consumption to be of great interest to the Catholic world. By virtue of the principle that fluids do not violate fasting, chocolate served as a substitute food during Lent, becoming an indispensable element in countries like Spain and Italy. But the issues relating to what may or may not be put into the body go beyond these historical contexts. For the entities responsible for interpreting moral behavior, corporations such as the Church, the State or the City, it is necessary to set controls on the individual body, a symbol, at the end of the day, of what is responsible for managing. This control has evolved towards sophisticated forms in which the possibility of choice has been considerably expanded, giving rise to the Utopian birth of a fully satisfied world.

Grandville’s illustrations in the 19th century reflected this fact in a unique way: "rivers will overflow with tea and chocolate, roast lamb will skip about on the prairie and fish fried in butter will go sailing down the Seine". But these dreams of satisfaction have their counter-image in the figure of the addicted, making this progressive vision of free choice paradoxical. If, as Honoré de Balzac asserted in his "Treatise on modern stimulants", the destiny of towns and, therefore, its citizens, depends on their nutrition, what can theories on appetite written during romance, fasting on saints’ days or the more recent "body worship" teach us in this regard? Could this be an element with which to imagine the liquid circulation of capitalism?