The True History of Chocolate (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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.

From The Washington Post

Exceptionally interesting throughout. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson; First US edition. edition (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500016933
• ISBN-13: 978-0500016930
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #685,841 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Totally Cholestorol Free, September 5, 2001

By	Matherson (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This book may be the only way to indulge in chocolate without gaining weight. The "True History of Chocolate" is fascinating in relating the Mayan and Inca cacao rituals - chocolate was an all-purpose sauce, drink, drug, what-have-you, as the recent film "Chocolat" attests. There are wonderful stories of chocolate's introduction to aristocratic Europe, as immortalized by Dicken's account of the Marquis' chocolate drinking in "A Tale of Two Cities." As today, doctors of the day were divided on chocolate's merits, wildly debating whether chocolate generated a phlegmatic or choleric humor. Only very recently was chocolate sweetened, and only later yet was it reduced to solid form and packaged in factories. The Coes seem to suggest that something mysterious was forever lost when the vulgarians of Cadbury and Hershey started peddling cacao to the masses.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful account of cacoa history, June 25, 2003

By	Brenda Jo Mengeling (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The True History of Chocolate (Paperback)

Sophie and Michael Coe have written a emminently readable history of chocolate. They emphasize the origins of cacoa in the New World, and the Spanish conquerors' response to their "discovery" of cacoa. The story fascinates, and I liked how the authors presented all the options when historical records were scarce or contradictory. The text is interspersed with clarifying illustrations, some are in color. The 19th and 20th centuries are covered in brief. The book ends with the resurgence in deluxe chocolates that use the rarer yet better tasting cacoa beans, and explains why these chocolates are so much better tasting than the supermarket candy bar. All in all, an excellent read.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Reading!, August 24, 2004

By	chronic_student (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The True History of Chocolate (Paperback)

This book was an extremely readable examination of the history of chocolate, starting with the ancient MesoAmericans and ending with contemporary European and American chocolate makers. Anyone interested in the history and development of their favorite confection or beverage should read this book - it's written engagingly in the first half, and then peters out just a tad towards the end. I wished for more about the modern chocolate industry, and a little more about the current manufacturing spike in fine chocolates. But as an anthropological study revolving around the development of chocolate, I could ask for nothing more. Coe and Coe have inspired a chocolate tasting party and an academic interest in a gastrologic subject.