How to Pack Lunch (Businesswomen's Edition), 1889

Godey's Ladies' Book, December 1884

"Portable Lunches... To women breadwinners how to have some change from the fare they daily carry with them, and which, perhaps, has long since palled on their tired palates, is a very puzzling and important question…  It will seem almost a mockery, perhaps, to tell tired business women to do anything that will encroach on their precious time. Yet good, enjoyable food is health, and, if they are well nourished, they will be more vigorous, and perhaps feel more inclined to take a little trouble… 

Chocolate sandwich.
Cut thin slices of bread and butter as for other sandwiches, have a cake of sweetened chocolate in a warm spot over night, or long enough to become soft like cheese. Scrape it and spread thickly over the bread and butter, then make into sandwiches. This sandwich, when the appetite is jaded and craves variety, will be agreeable to chocolate lovers. A cake of chocolate between two crackers is another form of it." 

Mrs. John A. Logan, The Home Manual

Age-old secret of successful businesswomen: the chocolate sandwich. 

How to Use Chocolate, 1672

Nicolas de Blegny, Le bon usage du thé, du caffé,
et du chocolat (1687)

“It revives the drooping spirits, and chears those that are ready to faint; expelling sorrow, trouble, care, and all perturbations of the minde; it is an Ambrosia: And finally, in a word, it cannot be too much praised… [It] keepeth the body fat and plump; and also preserveth the countenance fresh and fair… and certain it is, that a man may live longer with it, then with any kinde of Wine whatsoever... It is a great Cordial... strengthening the natural heat in all parts, and thereby prolonging life; for it is by an easie transmutation converted into blood. It preserveth in vigour the principal faculties, enabling men to prosecute their Studies and tedious exercises, expelling winde, opening obstructions… and is most excellent against Hypochondriack melancholy.” 

William Hughes, The American Physitian

Revives drooping spirits? Check. Prolongs life? Check. Turns into blood? Apparently.

How to Make Chocolate, 1685

Joannes de Laet, L'histoire du Nouveau Monde, 1640

"Take seven hundred Cacao Nuts, a pound and a half of white Sugar, two ounces of Cinnamon, fourteen grains of Mexico Pepper, call'd Chile or Pimiento, half an ounce of Cloves, three little Straws or Vanilla's de Campeche, or for want thereof, as much Annis-Seed as will equal the weight of a shilling, or Achiot a small quantity as big as a Filbeard, which may be sufficient only to give it a colour; some add thereto Almonds, Filbeards, and the Water of Orange Flowers." 

The Manner of Making of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate (1685)

Hankering for some spicy 17th-century chocolate? Well, what are you waiting for? Those seven hundred cacao nuts aren't going to count themselves.