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Cooking Books -> Chocolate
The True History of Chocolate
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by:
Coe, Sophie D.
Coe, Michael D.
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Publisher:
Thames & Hudson
Published: October 2000
ISBN: 0500282293
Format:Paperback
Pages:280
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Book Description
Amazon.com
The Coes, both anthropologists with a culinary bent, delve deeply into the history of their mouth-watering subject. The material on ancient cultures is particularly fascinating--did you know that the Maya used unsweetened liquid chocolate as
currency? And in a chapter called "Chocolate for the Masses," they detail the modernization of chocolate manufacture, which has allowed more than 25 million Hershey's Kisses to roll off the conveyor belt each day. --This text refers to an out of print or
unavailable edition of this title.
Rick Bayless, owner of Chicago's Frontera Grill and Topolobampo
A masterpiece of scholarship, passion, and wit. No stone (or page) is left unturned, no folk history is left unchallenged in search of
chocolate's veritable True History. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Theobromo caco . . . chocolate . . . "the food of the gods." Delicious indulgence or cause of migraines?
Aphrodisiac or medicinal tonic? Religious symbol or Mesoamerican currency? This delightful tale of one of the world's favorite foods draws upon botany, archaeology, socio-economics, and culinary history to present a complete and accurate history of
chocolate. The story begins some three thousand years ago in the jungles of lowland Mexico and Central America with the tree Theobroma cacao and the complex processes necessary to transform its bitter seeds into what is now known as chocolate. This was
centuries before chocolate was consumed in generally unsweetened liquid form and used as currency by the sophisticated Maya, and the Aztecs after them. The Spanish conquest of Central America introduced chocolate to Europe, where it became first the
stimulating drink of kings and aristocrats and then was popularized in coffeehouses. Industrialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made chocolate a food for the masses--until its revival in our own time as a luxury item. The True History of
Chocolate is the first book to present the real facts of the pre-Spanish history of chocolate--and it does so with great authority, since the authors share an unrivaled knowledge of the history of pre-Columbian civilizations and their cuisine. We
discover how chocolate got its name and how it was used as a medicine, and we find that the Spanish learned of chocolate through the Maya, not the Aztecs. From Maya hieroglyphs to the kingdom of the Hershey Bar, this is a fascinating history, beautifully
told, and enhanced with quotations, illustrations, and old recipes--a book for chocolate-lovers everywhere. 97 illustrations, 13 in color.
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