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The True History of Chocolate
It seems strange to think that even the humble chocolate bar has a long and interesting history. This history reaches far back to the earliest civilisation in the Americas, and it was the Olmecs not the Aztecs who can be rightly named as the inventors of chocolate. Told with flair and wit, this history of cacoa looks at its ancient Mexican roots, questioning how it became the food of the gods, its ritual significance, and how it was used as a currency in trade among the Olmec. Piecing together a range of archaeological, documentary and pictorial evidence, Sophie and Michael Coe discuss the Theobrama cacoa tree, the chemical properties of cacao and its early domestication and use. The story of chocolate continues under the Aztecs and their first encounters with the Europeans. The authors trace the transformation and renaming of cacao as it made its way to the chocoholics of Europe - `the white-skinned perfumed, bewigged, overdressed royalty and nobility'. Finally, Coe and Coe discuss its years of competititon with tea and coffee as the preferred hot beverage, its links with the Church, and its surrender to the industrialisation of the 19th century which withdrew the mystique of this luscious mouth-watering treat and turned it into an everyday, mass-produced, highly calorific product.
280 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1996
138 people are currently reading
9060 people want to read
About the author
Sophie D. Coe
5 books7 followersSophie Dobzhansky Coe was an anthropologist, food historian and author, primarily known for her work on the history of chocolate.
She graduated in 1955, majoring in anthropology, from Radcliffe College, where she was apparently known for her linguistic prowess (speaking Russian and Portuguese). She continued her postgraduate studies at Harvard and received her PhD in anthropology in 1964.
Sophie Coe made a unique contribution to the field through her study of native New World cooking, writing a number of scholarly essays for Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC). Her research in this area culminated in America's First Cuisines (1994). This work contained a substantial amount of material on chocolate, which Sophie Coe decided to expand upon for her next book, The True History of Chocolate (1996). She became seriously ill during the research and writing of this book and it was published posthumously in 1996, having been completed by her widower, Michael D. Coe.
Coe built an extensive collection of books on culinary history including community cookbooks, nearly 1,000 volumes from around the world dating from the eighteenth century onwards, as well as a group of manuscript cookbooks. She donated her collection of community cookbooks to the Schlesinger Library before her death, and afterwards her husband gave the library the rest of her collection.
After her death, Michael Coe, with the help of their friends Alan Davidson and Harlan Walker, set up the Sophie Coe Prize, a charitable trust based in the UK. The prize is awarded annually at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (which Coe attended every year) to an outstanding and original essay or book chapter in food history. One of the first of its kind at its foundation in 1995, the Sophie Coe Prize remains the most generous and esteemed prize for thorough and readable food history scholarship.
She graduated in 1955, majoring in anthropology, from Radcliffe College, where she was apparently known for her linguistic prowess (speaking Russian and Portuguese). She continued her postgraduate studies at Harvard and received her PhD in anthropology in 1964.
Sophie Coe made a unique contribution to the field through her study of native New World cooking, writing a number of scholarly essays for Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC). Her research in this area culminated in America's First Cuisines (1994). This work contained a substantial amount of material on chocolate, which Sophie Coe decided to expand upon for her next book, The True History of Chocolate (1996). She became seriously ill during the research and writing of this book and it was published posthumously in 1996, having been completed by her widower, Michael D. Coe.
Coe built an extensive collection of books on culinary history including community cookbooks, nearly 1,000 volumes from around the world dating from the eighteenth century onwards, as well as a group of manuscript cookbooks. She donated her collection of community cookbooks to the Schlesinger Library before her death, and afterwards her husband gave the library the rest of her collection.
After her death, Michael Coe, with the help of their friends Alan Davidson and Harlan Walker, set up the Sophie Coe Prize, a charitable trust based in the UK. The prize is awarded annually at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (which Coe attended every year) to an outstanding and original essay or book chapter in food history. One of the first of its kind at its foundation in 1995, the Sophie Coe Prize remains the most generous and esteemed prize for thorough and readable food history scholarship.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
July 20, 2021
Lets talk chocolate :)
This book as been on the shelf for ages so I am glad I finally got round to it. My expectations were a bit too high I'm afraid (unsurprising since chocolate is serious business in my country.)
At times I was a bit distracted by all that marvellous research put into to the book and just wanted to return to chocolate itself. Which is why it took me longer to finish then I had expected.
Anyway its done now and I am glad I read it.
This book as been on the shelf for ages so I am glad I finally got round to it. My expectations were a bit too high I'm afraid (unsurprising since chocolate is serious business in my country.)
At times I was a bit distracted by all that marvellous research put into to the book and just wanted to return to chocolate itself. Which is why it took me longer to finish then I had expected.
Anyway its done now and I am glad I read it.
June 18, 2017
Probably the best book I’ve read yet on the history of a particular substance. Thoroughly researched and referenced, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of chocolate. In addition, the authors correct misconceptions and myths, and coming from authors with a speciality on ancient Mesoamerica, they are able to go into extensive detail about the pre-Columbian uses of chocolate which most other books on the subject simply skim over. Easy read, nice flowing style too.
7 out of 10
September 21, 2025
Decent informative read on the history of chocolate, sometimes maybe even too informative.
Yet, the modern day chocolate practices are covered in the last two chapters, so very briefly.
A side note, but the author is very opinionated about some things (specifically Europeans) which came across as judgmental and petty even imho - the book is littered with snide remarks which I found a bit out of place in a nonfiction book on chocolate.
Yet, the modern day chocolate practices are covered in the last two chapters, so very briefly.
A side note, but the author is very opinionated about some things (specifically Europeans) which came across as judgmental and petty even imho - the book is littered with snide remarks which I found a bit out of place in a nonfiction book on chocolate.
August 6, 2011
As with the only other Coe book I've read so far, I give this book 5 stars for the information, 3 stars for the writing (hence, 4 star average).
Learning about chocolate is the next best thing to actually eating chocolate, and this book certainly gives the reader many tasty tidbits on which to nibble. Starting with a basic description of the trees themselves (how and where they grow, the different types) and what happens to the beans to get a usable product (fermentation, roasting, etc.), the narrative moves next to the history of the plant. Origins of its cultivation, how it spread to certain areas and either thrived or died are covered, along with how the cultivators used the end products and to what purpose. Then the Europeans enter the picture, resulting in the further spread of chocolate for quite some time, though not reaching modern proportions until sugar, mass production, and milk come together some 200 years later.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of what is covered in detail in the book, all fascinating to learn if frustrating to read at times. Coe has all the facts here but his style could use some polishing. The text can be plodding at times when there are too many names or dates bandied about, making it come off more as disorganized, rather than informative, rambling (and I really like informative rambling). As well, his opinions make their way into the text, sometimes subtle, sometime not, but it's not too distracting.
Like I say in my other Coe book review, it's a rewarding read if you don't mind his sometimes frustrating style of writing. This is my second Coe book, but I can still say: it won't be my last.
Learning about chocolate is the next best thing to actually eating chocolate, and this book certainly gives the reader many tasty tidbits on which to nibble. Starting with a basic description of the trees themselves (how and where they grow, the different types) and what happens to the beans to get a usable product (fermentation, roasting, etc.), the narrative moves next to the history of the plant. Origins of its cultivation, how it spread to certain areas and either thrived or died are covered, along with how the cultivators used the end products and to what purpose. Then the Europeans enter the picture, resulting in the further spread of chocolate for quite some time, though not reaching modern proportions until sugar, mass production, and milk come together some 200 years later.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of what is covered in detail in the book, all fascinating to learn if frustrating to read at times. Coe has all the facts here but his style could use some polishing. The text can be plodding at times when there are too many names or dates bandied about, making it come off more as disorganized, rather than informative, rambling (and I really like informative rambling). As well, his opinions make their way into the text, sometimes subtle, sometime not, but it's not too distracting.
Like I say in my other Coe book review, it's a rewarding read if you don't mind his sometimes frustrating style of writing. This is my second Coe book, but I can still say: it won't be my last.
January 7, 2023
Шоколадът се прави от какао, а какаото идва от Южна Америка. Това, което не знаете (може би; не ви смятам за толкова начетени) е, че то е древна напитка, която с кеф са потребявали разните му там древни маи и ацтеки, преди да бъдат изтребени от испанските конквистадори.
Въпросните конквистадори, освен злато, са донесли в Испания и какаото, дето испанските благородници са развили истинска зависимост към него и го разпространяват в цяла Европа, за да се превърне то в основата на шоколада през миналия век.
Въпросните конквистадори, освен злато, са донесли в Испания и какаото, дето испанските благородници са развили истинска зависимост към него и го разпространяват в цяла Европа, за да се превърне то в основата на шоколада през миналия век.
February 25, 2020
ENLIGHTENING AND SWEET
The book is fascinating because it shows how the European colonizers recuperated a typical Meso-American agricultural and culinary invention and imported it into Europe.
Cocoa is produced from the seeds of a tree that grows in tropical areas in South and Meso-America. In fact, the plant (several different species of it) grows in the Amazon valley up to Bolivia and Ecuador, in Brazil and along the Gulf of Mexico’s coast of South America. The Spanish, when they conquered and colonized Central America, discovered it among the Aztecs and the Mayas. They did not like it at first, but they got addicted very fast. And addicted is the proper word.
The book alludes to several crops that were turned into greatly profitable businesses by the Spaniards who established a full monopoly to the only profit of the Spanish state, and thus Spain had the monopoly in Europe; at least for some time. The other crops were tobacco, maize (it took a lot more time to really develop in Europe), potatoes (many different types all arriving in Europe in the second half of the 18th century), and various vegetables (tomatoes, squash of all types, beans of many types, peppers, chili peppers, etc.), let alone the famous turkey which is not a vegetable of any sort.
Chocolate is slightly different and yet the same, in a way. Like maize, the fruit of the cocoa-tree cannot shed its seeds all by itself. In nature, it is helped by monkeys who break the shell because they are appealed by the soft and sweet padding inside the shell in which the seeds are embedded. Human beings were appealed by the seeds. To be able to transform them into anything edible a long process is to be followed to collect the seeds at the proper time, to dry them, to roast them, to winnow them, to grind them and then to prepare the powder with water to turn it into a drink. Many spices are used for flavoring. It was thus the same as it was with tobacco. The growing of cocoa trees is easier since there is little to do, except clearing around the trees in the forest so that they can grow unhampered, or plant it in a cleared area and then take care of it, which is not very difficult. The domesticated tree is quite autonomous. Yet there are two main species, the Criolla species that can have diseases and is thus more delicate. The taste is better with this species, but it produces less than the other. The second species, the Forastero species, grows wild easily, is a lot more productive than the first species but the quality of the cocoa produced from its beans is less refined.
The authors follow the history of cocoa after the arrival of the Spaniards in Mesoamerica, and that leads them to know the second species, where it grows wild, etc. They do not wonder about this fact and thus the possibility to have had cocoa, chocolate south of Maya country, in tropical South America. In 1996, they could not know what was discovered by archeology very recently. An important study was published on October 29, 2018, in the journal Nature, “The use and domestication of Theobroma cocoa during the mid-Holocene in the Upper Amazon.” This study proves archaeologically that in the Upper Amazon, some 5300 years ago, nearly 1500 years older than all other proven occurrences in Meso-America, hence a long time before the Maya or the Olmec who were considered as the inventors of chocolate up to this publication. The study does not draw an essential consequence of this discovery since they could not know it then. Cultural phenomena do not move back in time. That means that the production of cocoa moved north and not south as is often considered for American Indians who are seen as moving from north to south. That leads to the idea that there must have been a demographic, economic and cultural migration that moved from the south to the north, in fact to meso-America. If such is the case it becomes quite obvious that the great stone builders of the Indian civilizations of South America and meso-America moved from the south to the north. Now when did they arrive in South America and where did they come from?
Cocoa is thus a lot more important than it appears at first. It is the key to a phenomenon that has been so far vastly neglected. Actually, the authors of the book assume that the invention is the Mayas’ or the Olmecs’. But that is not the case. In 1996 they could not know, and now we have to clearly state this new development.
The book is all the same unimaginably interesting about the history of this chocolate when it left meso-America and moved to Europe, along with coffee, tobacco, and tea. Note tea is from Asia of course, but it is essential in the whole story: Coffee reached England in 1647, chocolate in 1657, and Tea in 1658. Strangely enough, Europe got cut up into two halves. The Catholic south and its aristocratic “good society” (real aristocrats and their imitators) that adopted chocolate in spite of all preaching against it, at least in the upper classes, whereas in the Protestant north coffee was the trendy drink in the entrepreneurial middle class, known as the bourgeoisie. In this northern half though there was a lot of noise against coffee, including a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach and the argument between a father and his daughter, the daughter being addicted to coffee and the father considering this as a bad habit.
Strangely enough, the book does not consider the special case of England that adopted tea as both an aristocratic and popular drink, hence a universal drink, whereas coffee and chocolate remained marginal. In fact, this is the result of the monopolies given to some English Tea companies that were in fact at the very origin of the American rebellion that led to the Independence of the 13 colonies and the creation of the USA, after the famous Boston Tea Party. That could have also shown that in Virginia John Rolfe had to marry Pocahontas to learn from her how to grow and cure tobacco, thus producing the famous Virginia tobacco in 1617-1619 and this John Rolfe and his son Thomas Rolfe got the monopoly of growing and processing tobacco for the English market at first and then Europe, and they had to fight against the monopoly the Spaniards had had so far in Europe. That’s one point that is not clarified enough in this book. It remains within the case of chocolate and cocoa, but it would have been interesting to go into commercial details there.
One point the book is very clear about is the extermination, quasi-extermination, in one word the genocide, of Native Americans in the hands of Europeans. In the case of cocoa, we are dealing with the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Both in total alliance with the French and the Dutch replaced the Indians with African slaves. The book though does not mention the difference in treatment on the Catholic French, Portuguese, and Spanish side on one hand, and the Protestant English side on the other hand. They are ironic about how the Spanish were strict about marital duties for the slaves. But that is very different from what happened to women slaves up north. Down south, under French or Spanish or Portuguese rules all slaves must be Christianized and married, which enabled all the Indian women who were not able to find Indian men since they were systematically killed by the Spaniards or the Portuguese at conquest time, to be married and thus have some marital life, and this marital life of slaves was protected and guaranteed by the Spanish crown, by the Inquisition and by the Catholic church on the Iberic side, and by the Code Noir on the French side (French crown and French Catholic church).
The history of chocolate in Europe (and a little bit in the world?) is followed century after century, from the drink to the chocolate bar in the 20th century. True enough, chocolate is not very present in the 19th and early 20th centuries in European culture, yet Tchaikovsky could have been quoted with his Nutcracker. There was some move towards hard chocolate to be eaten and not drunk between the two world wars, but it is only after the second world war that the chocolate bar became an addiction in western societies, European societies particularly. The Swiss invention of milk chocolate was one essential development for this chocolate revolution that has ruined the teeth of several generations of Europeans due to the sweet tooth syndrome advertising has developed in them.
Of course, what is missing is the cinema and television in this approach. That made chocolate the most popular sweet you can invent for all celebrations or even for no celebrations at all. Christmas and chocolate are a must. Easter and chocolate are an obligation. A drugstore without some chocolate drink is impossible. And television is the cave of the forty chocolate thieves. Any kid imagines he or she is the Ali Baba or the Nina Baba who will raid the cave. And pirates are bringing in more chocolate than gold, as is well known. So, widen the book beyond its copyright date and then you can have the following films. Like Water for Chocolate (1992). Chocolat - One taste is all it takes (2000). Merci pour le Chocolat (2000). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Romantics Anonymous (2011). Menier and Banania were the two heroes of the 1950s for all children, especially since it was a treat that they could not enjoy that mush. After school the afternoon snack might have been a slice of bread cut off the big fat loaf, most of the time one day old, with some margarine on top, sprinkled with some Banania powder chocolate, I just said some and it meant not much. But the dream is in the eyes of the beholder, not on the slice of bread.
This childish or childlike side of chocolate is absent from the book, unluckily. Chocolate today is not an adult drink or candy. Grownups have coffee if they want something, or tea if they are not particular about their exciting caffeine drinks, but chocolate is for kids and kids like it. Now you can see the tremendous change between chocolate, the drink of the Maya, Olmec, Toltec or Aztec lords, with the possibility for a war prisoner to get a cup of it before the final moment of the sacrifice, and chocolate, the drink or the treat of kids in our modern world. Have we lost something, or have we gained something? These are two of the several sides of the question.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
The book is fascinating because it shows how the European colonizers recuperated a typical Meso-American agricultural and culinary invention and imported it into Europe.
Cocoa is produced from the seeds of a tree that grows in tropical areas in South and Meso-America. In fact, the plant (several different species of it) grows in the Amazon valley up to Bolivia and Ecuador, in Brazil and along the Gulf of Mexico’s coast of South America. The Spanish, when they conquered and colonized Central America, discovered it among the Aztecs and the Mayas. They did not like it at first, but they got addicted very fast. And addicted is the proper word.
The book alludes to several crops that were turned into greatly profitable businesses by the Spaniards who established a full monopoly to the only profit of the Spanish state, and thus Spain had the monopoly in Europe; at least for some time. The other crops were tobacco, maize (it took a lot more time to really develop in Europe), potatoes (many different types all arriving in Europe in the second half of the 18th century), and various vegetables (tomatoes, squash of all types, beans of many types, peppers, chili peppers, etc.), let alone the famous turkey which is not a vegetable of any sort.
Chocolate is slightly different and yet the same, in a way. Like maize, the fruit of the cocoa-tree cannot shed its seeds all by itself. In nature, it is helped by monkeys who break the shell because they are appealed by the soft and sweet padding inside the shell in which the seeds are embedded. Human beings were appealed by the seeds. To be able to transform them into anything edible a long process is to be followed to collect the seeds at the proper time, to dry them, to roast them, to winnow them, to grind them and then to prepare the powder with water to turn it into a drink. Many spices are used for flavoring. It was thus the same as it was with tobacco. The growing of cocoa trees is easier since there is little to do, except clearing around the trees in the forest so that they can grow unhampered, or plant it in a cleared area and then take care of it, which is not very difficult. The domesticated tree is quite autonomous. Yet there are two main species, the Criolla species that can have diseases and is thus more delicate. The taste is better with this species, but it produces less than the other. The second species, the Forastero species, grows wild easily, is a lot more productive than the first species but the quality of the cocoa produced from its beans is less refined.
The authors follow the history of cocoa after the arrival of the Spaniards in Mesoamerica, and that leads them to know the second species, where it grows wild, etc. They do not wonder about this fact and thus the possibility to have had cocoa, chocolate south of Maya country, in tropical South America. In 1996, they could not know what was discovered by archeology very recently. An important study was published on October 29, 2018, in the journal Nature, “The use and domestication of Theobroma cocoa during the mid-Holocene in the Upper Amazon.” This study proves archaeologically that in the Upper Amazon, some 5300 years ago, nearly 1500 years older than all other proven occurrences in Meso-America, hence a long time before the Maya or the Olmec who were considered as the inventors of chocolate up to this publication. The study does not draw an essential consequence of this discovery since they could not know it then. Cultural phenomena do not move back in time. That means that the production of cocoa moved north and not south as is often considered for American Indians who are seen as moving from north to south. That leads to the idea that there must have been a demographic, economic and cultural migration that moved from the south to the north, in fact to meso-America. If such is the case it becomes quite obvious that the great stone builders of the Indian civilizations of South America and meso-America moved from the south to the north. Now when did they arrive in South America and where did they come from?
Cocoa is thus a lot more important than it appears at first. It is the key to a phenomenon that has been so far vastly neglected. Actually, the authors of the book assume that the invention is the Mayas’ or the Olmecs’. But that is not the case. In 1996 they could not know, and now we have to clearly state this new development.
The book is all the same unimaginably interesting about the history of this chocolate when it left meso-America and moved to Europe, along with coffee, tobacco, and tea. Note tea is from Asia of course, but it is essential in the whole story: Coffee reached England in 1647, chocolate in 1657, and Tea in 1658. Strangely enough, Europe got cut up into two halves. The Catholic south and its aristocratic “good society” (real aristocrats and their imitators) that adopted chocolate in spite of all preaching against it, at least in the upper classes, whereas in the Protestant north coffee was the trendy drink in the entrepreneurial middle class, known as the bourgeoisie. In this northern half though there was a lot of noise against coffee, including a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach and the argument between a father and his daughter, the daughter being addicted to coffee and the father considering this as a bad habit.
Strangely enough, the book does not consider the special case of England that adopted tea as both an aristocratic and popular drink, hence a universal drink, whereas coffee and chocolate remained marginal. In fact, this is the result of the monopolies given to some English Tea companies that were in fact at the very origin of the American rebellion that led to the Independence of the 13 colonies and the creation of the USA, after the famous Boston Tea Party. That could have also shown that in Virginia John Rolfe had to marry Pocahontas to learn from her how to grow and cure tobacco, thus producing the famous Virginia tobacco in 1617-1619 and this John Rolfe and his son Thomas Rolfe got the monopoly of growing and processing tobacco for the English market at first and then Europe, and they had to fight against the monopoly the Spaniards had had so far in Europe. That’s one point that is not clarified enough in this book. It remains within the case of chocolate and cocoa, but it would have been interesting to go into commercial details there.
One point the book is very clear about is the extermination, quasi-extermination, in one word the genocide, of Native Americans in the hands of Europeans. In the case of cocoa, we are dealing with the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Both in total alliance with the French and the Dutch replaced the Indians with African slaves. The book though does not mention the difference in treatment on the Catholic French, Portuguese, and Spanish side on one hand, and the Protestant English side on the other hand. They are ironic about how the Spanish were strict about marital duties for the slaves. But that is very different from what happened to women slaves up north. Down south, under French or Spanish or Portuguese rules all slaves must be Christianized and married, which enabled all the Indian women who were not able to find Indian men since they were systematically killed by the Spaniards or the Portuguese at conquest time, to be married and thus have some marital life, and this marital life of slaves was protected and guaranteed by the Spanish crown, by the Inquisition and by the Catholic church on the Iberic side, and by the Code Noir on the French side (French crown and French Catholic church).
The history of chocolate in Europe (and a little bit in the world?) is followed century after century, from the drink to the chocolate bar in the 20th century. True enough, chocolate is not very present in the 19th and early 20th centuries in European culture, yet Tchaikovsky could have been quoted with his Nutcracker. There was some move towards hard chocolate to be eaten and not drunk between the two world wars, but it is only after the second world war that the chocolate bar became an addiction in western societies, European societies particularly. The Swiss invention of milk chocolate was one essential development for this chocolate revolution that has ruined the teeth of several generations of Europeans due to the sweet tooth syndrome advertising has developed in them.
Of course, what is missing is the cinema and television in this approach. That made chocolate the most popular sweet you can invent for all celebrations or even for no celebrations at all. Christmas and chocolate are a must. Easter and chocolate are an obligation. A drugstore without some chocolate drink is impossible. And television is the cave of the forty chocolate thieves. Any kid imagines he or she is the Ali Baba or the Nina Baba who will raid the cave. And pirates are bringing in more chocolate than gold, as is well known. So, widen the book beyond its copyright date and then you can have the following films. Like Water for Chocolate (1992). Chocolat - One taste is all it takes (2000). Merci pour le Chocolat (2000). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Romantics Anonymous (2011). Menier and Banania were the two heroes of the 1950s for all children, especially since it was a treat that they could not enjoy that mush. After school the afternoon snack might have been a slice of bread cut off the big fat loaf, most of the time one day old, with some margarine on top, sprinkled with some Banania powder chocolate, I just said some and it meant not much. But the dream is in the eyes of the beholder, not on the slice of bread.
This childish or childlike side of chocolate is absent from the book, unluckily. Chocolate today is not an adult drink or candy. Grownups have coffee if they want something, or tea if they are not particular about their exciting caffeine drinks, but chocolate is for kids and kids like it. Now you can see the tremendous change between chocolate, the drink of the Maya, Olmec, Toltec or Aztec lords, with the possibility for a war prisoner to get a cup of it before the final moment of the sacrifice, and chocolate, the drink or the treat of kids in our modern world. Have we lost something, or have we gained something? These are two of the several sides of the question.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
October 5, 2010
This is not only a history of chocolate, but a slice of history of the area from which it originated (Mesoamerica) the Aztecs and then the history of how chocolate came to Europe, North America and so forth. There are recipes for hot chocolate from the 18th century included. I have tried a couple. Let me tell you! This is not your powdered chocolate mix that you buy in the supermarket or at Trader Joe's. Those powders are milk/sugar based. And I will not go back to drinking a cup of that stuff because that is so phony! One does sacrifice taste and richness in the name of convenience. True hot chocolate is very rich indeed. Like a good cheesecake, a little goes a long way.
Last month I held a chocolatada (chocolate party) at my church. The party was a hit! With the holiday seasons coming up, I will hold another one sometime during Advent.
Last month I held a chocolatada (chocolate party) at my church. The party was a hit! With the holiday seasons coming up, I will hold another one sometime during Advent.
December 10, 2008
If you like cultural anthropology and you like chocolate, then you will like this book.
It reads like a thesis on chocolate, but this is not a bad thing. In fact, it makes it all the more valid and interesting. Included are several pages of references so you, too, can continue your knowledge of this wonderful plant product.
I would say this book is more geared for those scientifically inclined, but the history of chocolate's spread throughout the world is still a good read for anyone.
It reads like a thesis on chocolate, but this is not a bad thing. In fact, it makes it all the more valid and interesting. Included are several pages of references so you, too, can continue your knowledge of this wonderful plant product.
I would say this book is more geared for those scientifically inclined, but the history of chocolate's spread throughout the world is still a good read for anyone.
March 22, 2021
Book: The True History of Chocolate
Author: Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd; Third edition (1 January 2019)
Language: English
Paperback: 280 pages
Item Weight: 270 g
Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 cm
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Price: 874/-
Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy! Is not the Devil the original stock of it [syphilis]?”
“Not at all,” replied this great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.” ---------- Voltaire, Candide
Voltaire should have known better. There isn’t a slice of substantiation that Columbus ever contracted syphilis in the New World (though some of his crew may have), nor did he know anything about chocolate, let alone cochineal, a fine red dye derived from the bodies of Mexican scale insects.
The response of the ever-optimistic Pangloss to Candide’s question is just one of the innumerable examples of “accepted fiction” replacing fact in the history of food and cooking. Europeans did eventually learn of these two valuable substances, but this had nothing to do with the great navigator’s alleged social disease.
The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa had the precise idea when he wrote early in the 19th century “Look, there’s no metaphysics on earth like chocolate.” Chocolate is a substance long regarded as magical, even supernatural, not to mention salubrious, today for its heart - healthy properties, yesterday because of a solid medicinal reputation as well as an aphrodisiacal one.
Chocolate begins as seeds in a pod, that pod the fruit of the cacao tree Theobroma cacao. Not while we're on the subject, the scientific name means “drink of the gods,” by way of continuing the metaphysical.
Until moderately of late, nobody gave much thought to eating chocolate. Drink was its original use and, regardless of evidence of an Amazonian origin. Mesoamericans were probably its original users. Cacao was employed in ancient Maya ceremonies and rituals and later used in religious rites to keep alive the memory of Quezalcoatl, the god of the air who made earthly visits from time to time dispensing instructions on how to grow various foods, cacao among them.
Chocolate layer cake!! Chocolate chip cookies!! Boxes of chocolate truffles!! Hot fudge sundaes!! Chocolate is synonymous with man’s cultural sweet tooth, his restaurant dessert menus, and his notion of indulgence.
Chocolate is adored around the world and has been since the Spanish first encountered cocoa beans in South America in the 16th century. It is seen as delightful, addictive, and dominant beyond anything that can be explained by its ingredients.
The title of this book about chocolate has been personalized by the authors Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, from ‘The True History of the Conquest of Mexico’, penned (or dictated) by the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, completed in 1572 in Guatemala’s capital.
Old, deprived, and virtually blind, this spirited warrior simply wished to get the facts about the fall of the Aztecs straight for once. Unlike others who had written about the feats of Cortés and his men, sometimes in sycophantic terms, Bernal Díaz had actually been there, had known all the main contestants—including the Aztec emperor himself—and had no special axe to grind. His only goal was to tell as true a story as possible, free from what he called “lofty rhetoric.”
He proved to the world that a “true history” could be far more absorbing and informative than “accepted fiction.”
The history of food (and drink) has only become a reputable academic subject in recent decades, at least in the Western world. In North America and Great Britain, we have long suffered from puritanical prohibitions against the discussion of food while at table—and elsewhere, for that matter.
Although food, sex, and mortality are the three great ‘givens’ of human existence, earlier generations of academics normally avoided these topics, considering them not quite decent. Accordingly, culinary history was long left by default to proletarian enthusiasts of one or another food, drink, or cuisine.
This is principally the case with chocolate (and the cacao from which it is manufactured), a substance whose origins lie in the difficult and sometimes cloudy area of New World prehistory and ethnohistory.
The result is that much food writing about chocolate’s past falls into the category of Voltaire’s “accepted fiction.”
In this book, the authors have tried to disassociate from the circle by going back to the original sources.
When we modern humans think of chocolate, we think of it in its solid, sweetened form, and this is reflected in the undue emphasis which much food writing gives to solid chocolate. Yet during nine tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten.
In this book, the authors have tried to reinstate the balance by giving more consideration to chocolate as a valued beverage.
And since most books and articles on the subject devote only a few lines or pages, at the most, to the pre-Conquest era, we have devoted two chapters to this area of study—after all, only about one fifth of chocolate’s existence postdates the fall of the Aztec capital in 1521.
The dark brown, pleasantly bitter, chemically complex substance we know of as chocolate bears little resemblance to the pulp-surrounded seeds of the cocoa plant from which it is produced. One would never suspect that the one could be derived from the other.
The book has been divided into nine chapters:
1. The Tree of the Food of the Gods
2. The Birth of Chocolate: Mesoamerican Genesis
3. The Aztecs: People of the Fifth Sun
4. Encounter and Transformation
5. Chocolate Conquers Europe
6. The Source
7. Chocolate in the Age of Reason (and Unreason)
8. Chocolate for the Masses
9. The Ethics of Chocolate
To appreciate accurately the origin of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), and the steps involved in turning its seeds or beans into chocolate, the authors examine its economic botany and chocolate’s chemistry and properties in Chapter 1; the answers to the puzzle of cacao’s origin and domestication lie at hand, since the complete DNA string of the plant was determined in 2010 by two laboratories backed by the arch-rivals Mars and Hershey.
The ultimate origin of processed chocolate, though, seems to lie with the village farmers of southern Mexico’s Pacific coastal plain, almost four millennia in the past, and with the Olmecs who followed them, as shall be seen in Chapter Two.
The authors from then on, turn their attention to the rulers and royal courts of the gleaming cities of the Classic Maya, and present electrifying new data on Maya chocolate-drinking based on the recent decipherment of hieroglyphic texts. Chapter Three surveys the incredibly rich documentary evidence on the use and significance of cacao as both drink and coinage among the Aztecs, and the ritual consequence of the beverage as a symbol of human blood.
With the cataclysmic destruction of the Aztecs’ mile-high capital in 1521, and the downfall of their empire, the readers would enter an era in which chocolate-taking was transformed and creolized by the Spanish conquerors, and even new terminology invented, including the very word chocolate itself. Chapters Four and Five shows how the transformed, renamed, and taste-altered drink was brought to Europe, where it was considered a medicine to be taken according to the ancient Hippocratic-Galenic theory of the time. It also had to fit in with rules about fasting prevalent in Catholic countries.
The word “baroque” has come to mean ornateness and complexity employed for dramatic and artistic effects, and certainly in Baroque Europe there was a tremendous elaboration in the preparation of drunk chocolate, and even the inclusion of chocolate in dishes produced for noble and ecclesiastical tables. In Chapter Five, the reader comes face to face with the deep involvement of the Jesuits and the Catholic Church in all this, as the authors examine daring Italian experiments with the substance, in a way pushing chocolate to its culinary limits.
Chapter Six speaks of the producers who were responsible for the cacao and chocolate that reached the palaces, noble courts, and chocolate houses of Europe. This part of man’s history concerns colonialism, the transport and exploitation of black slave labor, and Spanish state monopolies, as well as the gradual slipping away of Spanish power as England, Holland, and France gained control of the seas. In the fullness of time, major cacao production was transferred from Spain’s tropical American possessions to Africa and beyond, to colonies controlled by Spain’s deadly rivals.
Following the culinary excesses of the Baroque Age, chocolate preparation during Europe’s Age of Reason seems almost tame, but chocolate-drinking continued to be associated with aristocracy, royalty, and the Church—except in England and other Protestant countries, where chocolate (and coffee) houses sprang up as meeting places and eventually clubs for nascent political parties.
The reader shall study in Chapter Seven that when the Revolution brought down the Catholic and royal establishment in France, coffee and tea—the favored hot drinks of the philosophes and salons of the Enlightenment—replaced drunk chocolate. Yet the Age of Reason ends with the strange and unreasonable figure of the marquis de Sade, a staunch “chocoholic” in spite of his wildly anti-establishment prose and actions.
The history of Chocolate thus far centers on chocolate as a beverage of the elite, whether of brown-skinned Aztec nobles or pale-skinned Jesuit clerics. Chapter Eight deals with chocolate’s modern history, beginning with the industrialization at the beginning of the 19th century, and the succeeding invention of solid chocolate for eating, not as something to be mixed with water and imbibed.
Chocolate soon became a snack for the masses, typified by the ubiquitous chocolate bar, an alteration overseen by the great, innovating manufacturers of England, Switzerland, and other European countries. But true mass-production techniques were perfected in the United States by Milton Hershey, with his own factory town and Disney-like theme park based on chocolate. Yet as production, mass-marketing, and consumption skyrocketed, the culinary quality of the product plunged.
In Chapter 9 the authors mull over the sometimes worrying moral concerns of the chocolate industry. Nevertheless, the authors end the “true history” on an optimistic note – with the maxim that the debasement of chocolate has led to its own reaction, with the emergence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries of elite, premier chocolate for aficionados with long pockets—but to be eaten, of course, not sipped, as chocolate had been for most of the thousands of years since that unknown Mexican Indian first turned cocoa beans into “the food of the gods.”
We all love Chocolate. But how much do we actually know about it? – The nine chapters that make up this book seek to answer this question.
What struck me most about this tome was that not only do the authors offer chary documentation; their book features fresh and formerly unpublished information and interpretations of chocolate history.
Moreover, it offers a wealth of extraordinary and fascinating facts and folklore about one of the world's beloved foods.
Though desiccated and blatantly academic in places, I found it thoroughly pleasurable.
Grab a copy if you choose.
Author: Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd; Third edition (1 January 2019)
Language: English
Paperback: 280 pages
Item Weight: 270 g
Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 cm
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Price: 874/-
Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy! Is not the Devil the original stock of it [syphilis]?”
“Not at all,” replied this great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.” ---------- Voltaire, Candide
Voltaire should have known better. There isn’t a slice of substantiation that Columbus ever contracted syphilis in the New World (though some of his crew may have), nor did he know anything about chocolate, let alone cochineal, a fine red dye derived from the bodies of Mexican scale insects.
The response of the ever-optimistic Pangloss to Candide’s question is just one of the innumerable examples of “accepted fiction” replacing fact in the history of food and cooking. Europeans did eventually learn of these two valuable substances, but this had nothing to do with the great navigator’s alleged social disease.
The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa had the precise idea when he wrote early in the 19th century “Look, there’s no metaphysics on earth like chocolate.” Chocolate is a substance long regarded as magical, even supernatural, not to mention salubrious, today for its heart - healthy properties, yesterday because of a solid medicinal reputation as well as an aphrodisiacal one.
Chocolate begins as seeds in a pod, that pod the fruit of the cacao tree Theobroma cacao. Not while we're on the subject, the scientific name means “drink of the gods,” by way of continuing the metaphysical.
Until moderately of late, nobody gave much thought to eating chocolate. Drink was its original use and, regardless of evidence of an Amazonian origin. Mesoamericans were probably its original users. Cacao was employed in ancient Maya ceremonies and rituals and later used in religious rites to keep alive the memory of Quezalcoatl, the god of the air who made earthly visits from time to time dispensing instructions on how to grow various foods, cacao among them.
Chocolate layer cake!! Chocolate chip cookies!! Boxes of chocolate truffles!! Hot fudge sundaes!! Chocolate is synonymous with man’s cultural sweet tooth, his restaurant dessert menus, and his notion of indulgence.
Chocolate is adored around the world and has been since the Spanish first encountered cocoa beans in South America in the 16th century. It is seen as delightful, addictive, and dominant beyond anything that can be explained by its ingredients.
The title of this book about chocolate has been personalized by the authors Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, from ‘The True History of the Conquest of Mexico’, penned (or dictated) by the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, completed in 1572 in Guatemala’s capital.
Old, deprived, and virtually blind, this spirited warrior simply wished to get the facts about the fall of the Aztecs straight for once. Unlike others who had written about the feats of Cortés and his men, sometimes in sycophantic terms, Bernal Díaz had actually been there, had known all the main contestants—including the Aztec emperor himself—and had no special axe to grind. His only goal was to tell as true a story as possible, free from what he called “lofty rhetoric.”
He proved to the world that a “true history” could be far more absorbing and informative than “accepted fiction.”
The history of food (and drink) has only become a reputable academic subject in recent decades, at least in the Western world. In North America and Great Britain, we have long suffered from puritanical prohibitions against the discussion of food while at table—and elsewhere, for that matter.
Although food, sex, and mortality are the three great ‘givens’ of human existence, earlier generations of academics normally avoided these topics, considering them not quite decent. Accordingly, culinary history was long left by default to proletarian enthusiasts of one or another food, drink, or cuisine.
This is principally the case with chocolate (and the cacao from which it is manufactured), a substance whose origins lie in the difficult and sometimes cloudy area of New World prehistory and ethnohistory.
The result is that much food writing about chocolate’s past falls into the category of Voltaire’s “accepted fiction.”
In this book, the authors have tried to disassociate from the circle by going back to the original sources.
When we modern humans think of chocolate, we think of it in its solid, sweetened form, and this is reflected in the undue emphasis which much food writing gives to solid chocolate. Yet during nine tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten.
In this book, the authors have tried to reinstate the balance by giving more consideration to chocolate as a valued beverage.
And since most books and articles on the subject devote only a few lines or pages, at the most, to the pre-Conquest era, we have devoted two chapters to this area of study—after all, only about one fifth of chocolate’s existence postdates the fall of the Aztec capital in 1521.
The dark brown, pleasantly bitter, chemically complex substance we know of as chocolate bears little resemblance to the pulp-surrounded seeds of the cocoa plant from which it is produced. One would never suspect that the one could be derived from the other.
The book has been divided into nine chapters:
1. The Tree of the Food of the Gods
2. The Birth of Chocolate: Mesoamerican Genesis
3. The Aztecs: People of the Fifth Sun
4. Encounter and Transformation
5. Chocolate Conquers Europe
6. The Source
7. Chocolate in the Age of Reason (and Unreason)
8. Chocolate for the Masses
9. The Ethics of Chocolate
To appreciate accurately the origin of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), and the steps involved in turning its seeds or beans into chocolate, the authors examine its economic botany and chocolate’s chemistry and properties in Chapter 1; the answers to the puzzle of cacao’s origin and domestication lie at hand, since the complete DNA string of the plant was determined in 2010 by two laboratories backed by the arch-rivals Mars and Hershey.
The ultimate origin of processed chocolate, though, seems to lie with the village farmers of southern Mexico’s Pacific coastal plain, almost four millennia in the past, and with the Olmecs who followed them, as shall be seen in Chapter Two.
The authors from then on, turn their attention to the rulers and royal courts of the gleaming cities of the Classic Maya, and present electrifying new data on Maya chocolate-drinking based on the recent decipherment of hieroglyphic texts. Chapter Three surveys the incredibly rich documentary evidence on the use and significance of cacao as both drink and coinage among the Aztecs, and the ritual consequence of the beverage as a symbol of human blood.
With the cataclysmic destruction of the Aztecs’ mile-high capital in 1521, and the downfall of their empire, the readers would enter an era in which chocolate-taking was transformed and creolized by the Spanish conquerors, and even new terminology invented, including the very word chocolate itself. Chapters Four and Five shows how the transformed, renamed, and taste-altered drink was brought to Europe, where it was considered a medicine to be taken according to the ancient Hippocratic-Galenic theory of the time. It also had to fit in with rules about fasting prevalent in Catholic countries.
The word “baroque” has come to mean ornateness and complexity employed for dramatic and artistic effects, and certainly in Baroque Europe there was a tremendous elaboration in the preparation of drunk chocolate, and even the inclusion of chocolate in dishes produced for noble and ecclesiastical tables. In Chapter Five, the reader comes face to face with the deep involvement of the Jesuits and the Catholic Church in all this, as the authors examine daring Italian experiments with the substance, in a way pushing chocolate to its culinary limits.
Chapter Six speaks of the producers who were responsible for the cacao and chocolate that reached the palaces, noble courts, and chocolate houses of Europe. This part of man’s history concerns colonialism, the transport and exploitation of black slave labor, and Spanish state monopolies, as well as the gradual slipping away of Spanish power as England, Holland, and France gained control of the seas. In the fullness of time, major cacao production was transferred from Spain’s tropical American possessions to Africa and beyond, to colonies controlled by Spain’s deadly rivals.
Following the culinary excesses of the Baroque Age, chocolate preparation during Europe’s Age of Reason seems almost tame, but chocolate-drinking continued to be associated with aristocracy, royalty, and the Church—except in England and other Protestant countries, where chocolate (and coffee) houses sprang up as meeting places and eventually clubs for nascent political parties.
The reader shall study in Chapter Seven that when the Revolution brought down the Catholic and royal establishment in France, coffee and tea—the favored hot drinks of the philosophes and salons of the Enlightenment—replaced drunk chocolate. Yet the Age of Reason ends with the strange and unreasonable figure of the marquis de Sade, a staunch “chocoholic” in spite of his wildly anti-establishment prose and actions.
The history of Chocolate thus far centers on chocolate as a beverage of the elite, whether of brown-skinned Aztec nobles or pale-skinned Jesuit clerics. Chapter Eight deals with chocolate’s modern history, beginning with the industrialization at the beginning of the 19th century, and the succeeding invention of solid chocolate for eating, not as something to be mixed with water and imbibed.
Chocolate soon became a snack for the masses, typified by the ubiquitous chocolate bar, an alteration overseen by the great, innovating manufacturers of England, Switzerland, and other European countries. But true mass-production techniques were perfected in the United States by Milton Hershey, with his own factory town and Disney-like theme park based on chocolate. Yet as production, mass-marketing, and consumption skyrocketed, the culinary quality of the product plunged.
In Chapter 9 the authors mull over the sometimes worrying moral concerns of the chocolate industry. Nevertheless, the authors end the “true history” on an optimistic note – with the maxim that the debasement of chocolate has led to its own reaction, with the emergence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries of elite, premier chocolate for aficionados with long pockets—but to be eaten, of course, not sipped, as chocolate had been for most of the thousands of years since that unknown Mexican Indian first turned cocoa beans into “the food of the gods.”
We all love Chocolate. But how much do we actually know about it? – The nine chapters that make up this book seek to answer this question.
What struck me most about this tome was that not only do the authors offer chary documentation; their book features fresh and formerly unpublished information and interpretations of chocolate history.
Moreover, it offers a wealth of extraordinary and fascinating facts and folklore about one of the world's beloved foods.
Though desiccated and blatantly academic in places, I found it thoroughly pleasurable.
Grab a copy if you choose.
October 20, 2017
from the Mayas to Mars bars
Starting off with a "chemical kaleidescope" of chocolate itself, we read progressively about the distant origins of the cacao tree in South America and then in Mesoamerica. Cacao became one of the most important crops among the Maya, Toltec, Aztec and other Indian peoples, used as a drink (without sugar) by the elites. Cacao beans were used as money, a practice which continued after the Spanish conquest. In a most readable, interesting style, Coe takes us through the history of chocolate production among the Aztecs and then how it was transferred to Spain. There it was believed to have medical properties according to the Galenic system of medicine, one which held sway in Europe for centuries. Some people believed it was an aphrodisiac also. Chocolate-drinking spread from Spain to Italy, France, and England, and from there back across the ocean to America. Short biographies of people involved with chocolate use or production pepper the text. There are a myriad facts and interesting tidbits to consider. The best chocolate was considered to come from the Soconusco region of Mexico's Pacific coast, followed by Venezuela, though cacao grew in many parts of the New World. Europeans mixed many odd spices or other materials with chocolate; they also began to make chocolate in solid candy or confectionary, never dreamt of by the Indians who did put in chili. Up to the mid-18th century, chocolate production had not changed much in millennia, but then the Industrial Revolution came along. In the 19th century, in England, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, "industrial" chocolate production began with companies arising like Fry's and Cadbury that are still known today. Finally we look at the USA and the emergence of Hershey and Mars, two giant producers and their commercial empires. It's a long story that ends with "artisanal chocolate" making a comeback. This is definitely worthwhile reading, whether you are a chocolate-freak or not. It's part of the economic history of our planet.
Starting off with a "chemical kaleidescope" of chocolate itself, we read progressively about the distant origins of the cacao tree in South America and then in Mesoamerica. Cacao became one of the most important crops among the Maya, Toltec, Aztec and other Indian peoples, used as a drink (without sugar) by the elites. Cacao beans were used as money, a practice which continued after the Spanish conquest. In a most readable, interesting style, Coe takes us through the history of chocolate production among the Aztecs and then how it was transferred to Spain. There it was believed to have medical properties according to the Galenic system of medicine, one which held sway in Europe for centuries. Some people believed it was an aphrodisiac also. Chocolate-drinking spread from Spain to Italy, France, and England, and from there back across the ocean to America. Short biographies of people involved with chocolate use or production pepper the text. There are a myriad facts and interesting tidbits to consider. The best chocolate was considered to come from the Soconusco region of Mexico's Pacific coast, followed by Venezuela, though cacao grew in many parts of the New World. Europeans mixed many odd spices or other materials with chocolate; they also began to make chocolate in solid candy or confectionary, never dreamt of by the Indians who did put in chili. Up to the mid-18th century, chocolate production had not changed much in millennia, but then the Industrial Revolution came along. In the 19th century, in England, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, "industrial" chocolate production began with companies arising like Fry's and Cadbury that are still known today. Finally we look at the USA and the emergence of Hershey and Mars, two giant producers and their commercial empires. It's a long story that ends with "artisanal chocolate" making a comeback. This is definitely worthwhile reading, whether you are a chocolate-freak or not. It's part of the economic history of our planet.
November 2, 2015
An absolutely fascinating exploration of the history of chocolate, from its Mayan "origins" to pre-conquest Aztecs, through to its co-opting by Spain and other European powers as a consumable delicacy for the wealthy and powerful alone. How it was consumed and why, how it was as much as status symbol as a medicinal is also covered. Over time, the consumption of chocolate and its marketing and production changed until its "dark" origins and the involvement of slaves and now child labour on plantations in Africa and other parts of the world is all but elided (or conveniently ignored, as the confronting documentary, The Dark Side of Chocolate: Modern Slavery revealed) is all intricately explained in this riveting book. The role of the Quakers and religion generally as well as chocolate's politics are also covered. Advertising - the "whitening" of chocolate, and even humane trading in the cacao beans is briefly examined. A fabulous read for anyone interested in history, politics and chocolate.
February 18, 2011
This book was chalk full of facts and information, but Coe's writing style left something to be desired. It was too academic; often lacking clarity and coherence. In his introduction Coe indicates that he wrote this book based on the research and notes of his late wife, Sophia, who passed away unexpectedly from cancer. Thus, he's writing this book as a sort of tribute to his wife. I think that's sweet (no pun intended).
The first two chapters about chocolate in the Mayan and Aztec culture were worthwhile and well-researched, probably because Michael Coe is a Professor of Anthropology at Yale, but when it came to writing about chocolate in Europe and contemporary developments, the book fell flat and the information was often rushed, jumpy, or went off topic.
The most interesting things I learned from this book are that cocoa pods grow from the trunk of the cocoa tree, not from the branches, and that the drink was often used to disguise poison!
The first two chapters about chocolate in the Mayan and Aztec culture were worthwhile and well-researched, probably because Michael Coe is a Professor of Anthropology at Yale, but when it came to writing about chocolate in Europe and contemporary developments, the book fell flat and the information was often rushed, jumpy, or went off topic.
The most interesting things I learned from this book are that cocoa pods grow from the trunk of the cocoa tree, not from the branches, and that the drink was often used to disguise poison!
February 5, 2017
This was a really thorough history of chocolate. It had more of an anthropological perspective which I really enjoyed. I definitely feel like I have learned a lot more about the history of chocolate and the history of the Mayans too.
December 29, 2018
This is an excellent book that gives a very clear idea of how chocolate has developed into it's familiar form today. I thought it was interesting that chocolate used to exclusively be a drink and that when the Spanish were first introduced to it they hated the stuff. When it did finally become popular in Europe it was unfortunately linked with the slave trade (and there are quite a few issues with it today as well). Definitely an informative book!
I love how learning about one specific food will teach you a great deal about many other things. For example, the humoral system of Europe lasted so long that chocolate had to fit into it and there were centuries of debate regarding just this. However, no once could decide if it was "hot" or "cold" and whether it qualified more as a food or drink for religious observations (if it was a food it couldn't be had during a fast).
I originally discovered this book because of a history class but I enjoyed reading it on my own for how well researched it is.
I love how learning about one specific food will teach you a great deal about many other things. For example, the humoral system of Europe lasted so long that chocolate had to fit into it and there were centuries of debate regarding just this. However, no once could decide if it was "hot" or "cold" and whether it qualified more as a food or drink for religious observations (if it was a food it couldn't be had during a fast).
I originally discovered this book because of a history class but I enjoyed reading it on my own for how well researched it is.
October 14, 2025
Bardzo dobra książka! Potrzebowałam czegoś lekkiego, ale jednocześnie dzięki czemu mogłabym posiąść dodatkową wiedzę i się nie zawiodłam. Ta książka śledzi losy czekolady od samego początku zaczynając od jej kulturalnego i historycznego znaczenia w Mezoameryce. Same początki czekolady jako cennego surowca są dość szczegółowo okazane, co jest miłym zaskoczeniem na tle wielu pozycji, które temat ten traktują po macoszemu, skupiając się raczej na nowoczesnej historii czekolady. Jest tu wiele anegdotek, jednak nie brakuje też dość krwawych wątków ukazujących dość okrutną naturę ludzką względem tego surowca. Plusem dla dodatkowej immersji są liczne przepisy, dzięki którym dowiecie się jak przygotować czekoladę z dworu barokowego lub ulubioną wersję Króla Słońce, świetnie też prezentują się liczne ilustracje czy obrazy. Podsumowując, jest to lekka przyjemna pozycja warta przeczytania.
October 11, 2023
A well documented account of the origins of chocolate in the Americas: the regions it was traced to, when and how it began to be processed by its native populations, and how it made its way to western societies and then to the candy shelves.
April 18, 2021
Update: Just had Criollo today, omg best damn chocolate I've ever had. Where has this been my whole life?!?!?
Fascinating topic. Everything from the origins of the plant to the modern day chocolate scions is covered - though notably with more of a focus on the early history (Aztec and Spanish). I'm not sure what else to say. If you like chocolate, you'll probably find this book interesting. The writing is very academic and detailed, which I don't mind, but others might. Some topics are repeated unnecessarily, but in general, I thought it was fine enough. (Although, now I really want to try that old frothy chocolate, and I don't know where they make that :( )
Fascinating topic. Everything from the origins of the plant to the modern day chocolate scions is covered - though notably with more of a focus on the early history (Aztec and Spanish). I'm not sure what else to say. If you like chocolate, you'll probably find this book interesting. The writing is very academic and detailed, which I don't mind, but others might. Some topics are repeated unnecessarily, but in general, I thought it was fine enough. (Although, now I really want to try that old frothy chocolate, and I don't know where they make that :( )
December 9, 2010
Before I read this book I didn't know much about the origin of one of my most favorite treats: chocolate.
The authors spend a very large portion of the book talking about chocolate's very early history in Central America. Contrary to popular belief, the Aztecs didn't invent chocolate, although the drank lots of it. Earlier civilizations, like the Mayans and Olmecs can be credited with the invention of chocolate, although not in a form we would probably recognize today. All the early Central American civilizations drank chocolate instead of eating it. And they didn't put sugar in it, but used other spices instead.
Once chocolate got to Europe in the 1500s-1600s, it was still a drink, not a foodstuff. And it was the drink of the elite. Royalty, aristocrats and high Catholic clerics all drank a lot of chocolate. And they put things we might recognize today in it, like sugar and vanilla. It was treated as a medicine, though, not as a treat. It wasn't until the industrial era that chocolate became an eatable treat, sold in bar form, like we know it today.
This was a fascinating read, and I got through it pretty quickly too, although I would recommend having some chocolate around while you read it, it's pretty torturous to be reading about such a tasty treat without having some around for yourself!
The authors spend a very large portion of the book talking about chocolate's very early history in Central America. Contrary to popular belief, the Aztecs didn't invent chocolate, although the drank lots of it. Earlier civilizations, like the Mayans and Olmecs can be credited with the invention of chocolate, although not in a form we would probably recognize today. All the early Central American civilizations drank chocolate instead of eating it. And they didn't put sugar in it, but used other spices instead.
Once chocolate got to Europe in the 1500s-1600s, it was still a drink, not a foodstuff. And it was the drink of the elite. Royalty, aristocrats and high Catholic clerics all drank a lot of chocolate. And they put things we might recognize today in it, like sugar and vanilla. It was treated as a medicine, though, not as a treat. It wasn't until the industrial era that chocolate became an eatable treat, sold in bar form, like we know it today.
This was a fascinating read, and I got through it pretty quickly too, although I would recommend having some chocolate around while you read it, it's pretty torturous to be reading about such a tasty treat without having some around for yourself!
January 22, 2019
Read for February book club- theme: chocolate! This was a serious history book, and a little above my pay grade in parts, but still an intriguing, new genre for me to read. One of my favorite parts of the book was the possible etymology of the word chocolate. Traditionally, the Aztec word cacahuatl was very close to the Spanish word caca (meaning feces). Quote: “It is hard to believe that the Spanish were NOT thoroughly uncomfortable with a noun beginning with caca to describe a thick, dark-brown drink which they had begun to appreciate. They desperately needed some other word... (and) came up with chocolatl and chocolate.” I found it interesting that chocolate through the ages was mostly a drink, and only in the last century or so became a solid, edible treat. I also enjoyed the history of the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania; I have spent quite a bit of time there and have toured all the Hershey properties and Chocolate World. The sections on high quality and Fair Trade chocolate were also enlightening and I will definitely be looking for a bar of Valrhona chocolate on my next shopping trip to Trader Joe’s! Chocolate! Drink/food of the gods indeed!
May 29, 2022
This book is a monster (transcribing it into braille was, anyhow). The Coes did a great job at harvesting all existing knowledge about chocolate (ancient past, recent past, and present) into one volume. I believe this is a vast reliable resource on the subject if you are looking for this kind of thing. As this book was assigned for me to transcribe, it wasn't anywhere near my first pick of books, but I must say I enjoyed the read! I learned a lot of semi-useless information albeit interesting. I really enjoyed the spanish history sections (sacrificial rituals galore), the lore and myths surrounding chocolate, and the hilarious French bits ... esp. the Marquis de Sade tidbits.
March 8, 2017
The True History of Chocolate, now in it's 3rd edition, gives a very full history of the cacao tree and it's fruit seeds which we use today to make all the chocolate items desired by the masses. Drs. Coe have written an entertaining, accessible, history book which begins with discussion of cacao from its early days as a form of money for the natives of Central and South America.
The way that cacao is particularly intertwined with the author's expertise in Mesoamerican history makes this a must read for anyone interested in how the simple bean from a large gourd like fruit became one of the most sought after delicacies in the world.
The way that cacao is particularly intertwined with the author's expertise in Mesoamerican history makes this a must read for anyone interested in how the simple bean from a large gourd like fruit became one of the most sought after delicacies in the world.
February 4, 2013
I was taught history in the most boring fashion possible as if all people ever did was fight wars and build and lose empires. So I love reading these kinds of histories that actually give you a sense of what life was really like for the people themselves at various ages.
I give this 3 stars for content but 2 for writing. It is an interesting story but it is written by two anthropologists and isn't as accessible as others I've read in this genre. Lots of "we shall return to this subject later" and "as the reader will recall" phrases. A bit of a slog to get through as a result.
I give this 3 stars for content but 2 for writing. It is an interesting story but it is written by two anthropologists and isn't as accessible as others I've read in this genre. Lots of "we shall return to this subject later" and "as the reader will recall" phrases. A bit of a slog to get through as a result.
January 29, 2022
An excellent microhistory of what is now a substance found almost anywhere in the world. The authors Coe and Coe are most proficient when relaying the Mayan and Aztec origins of cacao tree planting, harvesting, production and consumption of the liquid form of chocolate that was most prevalent through most of history up until the invention of chocolate solids in the late 19th century in Europe. The chapter on consumption during Baroque times in various countries, and how various historical (royal or noble) figures consumed them was most fascinating.
The text reads a bit dry at times, and some chapters seem discombobulated from the rest of the narrative (in particular that on the ethics of contemporary chocolate production at the book's end, and the opener focused on the biology of the trees from which cacao nibs are extracted).
Also interesting to read about were the devices needed to create the cacao powder (technologies which were scaled up during the Industrial Revolution) over the course of history.
This book is best for investigating the earlier history of chocolate; those interested in learning more about Hershey, Cadbury, or Godiva (all of which are discussed briefly) might seek other sources.
The text reads a bit dry at times, and some chapters seem discombobulated from the rest of the narrative (in particular that on the ethics of contemporary chocolate production at the book's end, and the opener focused on the biology of the trees from which cacao nibs are extracted).
Also interesting to read about were the devices needed to create the cacao powder (technologies which were scaled up during the Industrial Revolution) over the course of history.
This book is best for investigating the earlier history of chocolate; those interested in learning more about Hershey, Cadbury, or Godiva (all of which are discussed briefly) might seek other sources.
April 3, 2021
Really tells the history from the beginning to the end. Very sophisticated.
April 28, 2023
An informative read, I wish the authors had spent a bit more time on the development of chocolate from the 1900's onward, but that's my only complaint.
March 20, 2024
Incredibly detailed! Gives the readers everything we know about chocolate from the moment it was discovered to modern day. Certainly a fun read!
January 31, 2023
Just about everything there is to know about chocolate, but didn't know to ask! :)
January 31, 2019
The style may be academic but the info is fascinating and the primary source research is impressive. Would make a great documentary.
November 18, 2018
For many years this book was in my shelve to be read. But I am glad to have finally read it
An amazing book, really well researched with tons of info that really surprised me.
Also the story behind of it writing it is so sweet; with Michael Coe finishing the book and putting his wife as main author after all the years spent building the text. That is true love!
An amazing book, really well researched with tons of info that really surprised me.
Also the story behind of it writing it is so sweet; with Michael Coe finishing the book and putting his wife as main author after all the years spent building the text. That is true love!
September 6, 2023
I picked up this book while planning our cruise through the Panama Canal. One of the excursions we chose was to a cacao plantation and chocolate “factory” and I was curious about how chocolate migrated from Central America to Europe during the colonial era. Sophie B. Coe seems to be the foremost authority on the subject. Unfortunately, she did not live to see this book published. She was still working on it when she died in 1994. Her husband Michael finished her work and published it in 1996.
This history of chocolate dates back to the ancient civilizations of Central and South America including the Olmecs and Aztecs. Coe extensively details the history of chocolate in these civilizations, as well as how the different regions affected its ability to grow as well as the taste. The details of the pre-Columbian use of chocolate is something routinely missing from discussions about it. Mostly, we seem to focus on Europe and North America when we talk about chocolate. It was also a form of currency in this civilization.
Coe also details how chocolate was prepared in those times, which is quite different from how we see it today. Mostly, it was a foamy drink where the actual foam was the best part. The extensive processing it underwent to get to this point for them was a marvel of the era. The beans themselves attracted monkeys that would split them open for the sweet insides, leaving behind the seeds that would be collected and then ground up, similar to coffee beans, and prepared into that foamy drink. It was thought to be collected in the wild, but more recent evidence points to it being a cultivated crop.
To read my full review, please go to: https://thoughtsfromthemountaintop.co...
This history of chocolate dates back to the ancient civilizations of Central and South America including the Olmecs and Aztecs. Coe extensively details the history of chocolate in these civilizations, as well as how the different regions affected its ability to grow as well as the taste. The details of the pre-Columbian use of chocolate is something routinely missing from discussions about it. Mostly, we seem to focus on Europe and North America when we talk about chocolate. It was also a form of currency in this civilization.
Coe also details how chocolate was prepared in those times, which is quite different from how we see it today. Mostly, it was a foamy drink where the actual foam was the best part. The extensive processing it underwent to get to this point for them was a marvel of the era. The beans themselves attracted monkeys that would split them open for the sweet insides, leaving behind the seeds that would be collected and then ground up, similar to coffee beans, and prepared into that foamy drink. It was thought to be collected in the wild, but more recent evidence points to it being a cultivated crop.
To read my full review, please go to: https://thoughtsfromthemountaintop.co...
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