Chalet, Gruyere Cheese (1801); Tordillas, Chiili (1777)

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A GENERAL COLLECTION OF THE BEST AND MOST INTERESTING VOYAGES AND TRAVELS IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD
By JOHN PINKERTON
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme
1809
Volume the Fifth

Pg. 640:
TRAVELS IN SWITZERLAND,
AND IN THE COUNTRY OF THE GRISONS
By WILLIAM COXE*
*London, 1801

Pg. 846: LETTER LIV.--_Cheese of Gruyeres._
(OED does not have an entry for "Gruyere" cheese--ed.)
(...)  The cheese, weel known under the name of Gruyeres, which is exported in large quantities, is made on a chain of mountains about ten leagues in length and four in breadth...

Pg. 846:  The buildings necessary for making cheese consist of a _chalet_ or cottage, which contains a room with a furnace for boiling the milk...
(OED has "chalet" from 1817, by Lord Byron.  Merriam-Webster has 1782, possibly from Rousseau--ed.)

Pg. 897:  LETTER LXX.--_Description of the Marmot._

(I did not find "fondu" in this 1801 work, but it's possible that I missed it--ed.)

--------------------------------------------------------
PINKERTON
1812
Volume the Thirteenth

Pg. 753:
TRAVELS TO GUAXACA*
By M. NICOLAS JOSEPH THIERY DE MENONVILLE
*The same with Oaxaca, pronounced "Hooah"-haca.
(No date is given here, but the travels began in 1777--ed.)

Pg. 794:  These tordillas are cakes made of maize, first boiled in water, into which a handful of lime is cast to soften the exterior skin; the skin is afterwards washed off, and the peeled maize is crusted with a cylindrical stone, by rolling it over a flat one eighteen inches long by ten broad; after this first process, it is kneaded with the hand, and rounded and flattened to the thickness of about four lines; it is then baked on a stone or iron plate, heated for the purpose, and turned, that both sides may be properly baked; in two minutes the cake is made.  It is always an insipid food, but very stomachic, never causes indigestion, and at no time occasioned me any inconvenience.  In a family consisting of two women and five or six men, the former are constantly employed, morning and night, in preparing tordillas; five or six are requisite for one person at each meal, and they are constantly eaten new.

Pg. 802:  ...imediately another tordilya was served up, covered with an egg and _chili_: the latter dish I found excellent, and paid for with another real.I saw they were preparing me still others, but I made them signs to desist.
   Tordilyas have before been noticed: they form the chief food of the Indians.  As for _chili_ it is a Mexican sauce made of pimento and tomatas, or love-apples, pounded together in a mortar, and mixed with salt and water: it is the common sauce, and (Pg. 803--ed.) indifferently for bread, meat and fish, and is the most delicate ragout known to these worthy people.  Those who are in easy circumstances, always keep it by them to eat their tordilyas with, which are without it insipid.  The Indian when he has no tomatas, knowing without doubt the affinity between them and nightshade and _physalis_, or the winter-cherry, substitutes _alkekengi_, or the winter-cherry, as I frequently remarked on my way, a circumstance which put me on my guard in eating this sauce.

Pg. 805:  ...I enquired of the first Indian I met where the tienda was (the eating-house)...
(OED has 1844 for "tienda"--ed.)

Pg. 805:  ...would have had me take the remainder of the fowl, but this I refused, as I did also a beverage made from the maguey, and called by them pulque, as the whitish, troubled, and dirty appearance of it, inspired me with disgust.

Pg. 810:  ...bigonia...cacti...

Pg. 811:  The pitahiaha, one of the species of cerei, is commonly of minor size; its fruit is not covered with thorns, but scales, which are leaves of the cup of the flower; it is a truly delicious fruit, and of a vast variety of flavour...
   Throughout the country the Indian lives on the fruit of this tree...
(OED has 1783 for "pitahaya," a large cactus--ed.)

(This article gives us the second "tortilla," and the second "pulque," and the OED's first 18th-century "chili."  It's the best pre-1800 article on Mexican cookery, in English--ed.)