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Title: The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe ISBN: 0-500-28229-3 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Engaging: Academic yet Readable
Comment: This book went beyond my expectations by presenting the history of chocolate in an unbiased, academic yet readable format. A far cry from high school history textbooks, the authors enchant the reader with stories and historical tid-bits while maintaining a cohesive whole. I definitely recommend this book to chocolate connoisseurs, history-buffs, and chocoholics alike.
Rating: 5
Summary: Delightful account of cacoa history
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: For the Love of Chocolate
Comment: "The ultimate origin of processed chocolate, though, seems to lie with the Olmec of the lowland forests of southern Mexico, some three millennia in the past, as shall be seen in Chapter Two." pg. 13
When reading another book called: "Food: A Culinary History," we find information on Chocolate telling of how chocolate was "discovered." They basically explain how the Spanish discover chocolate when they colonized the New World and explain how the Aztecs had used chocolate in their rituals.
Which rituals? (You will be shocked)
Who actually first discovered the Theobroma cacao plant/tree or learned how to use the beans (they look a lot like giant almonds in the picture) in the pods (look like an elongated squash) growing directly from the tree trunk? (It wasn't the Aztecs)
Do ungerminated beans have the same flavor as germinated beans?
The story of chocolate is extremely detailed. This book traces the discovery of chocolate from it's earliest pre-Columbian roots to modern times. The way we serve chocolate today almost seems primitive when you read how many ways the Aztecs made their chocolate drinks.
Honeyed Chocolate
Flowered Chocolate
Green Vanilla Flavored Chocolate
Bright Red Chocolate
It is amazing how this book came together as it has, because Sophie D. Coe was diagnosed with cancer before the book was completed. Her husband, Michael D. Coe, took on the responsibility of literally thousands of pages of notes and finished a book she started.
The authors spent hundreds of hours tracing down all possible references to chocolate in Libraries in America and Europe. They also searched in 400-year-old books in the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome.
The story of Chocolate is amazing. Just the way it is made is a process that was kept secret for many years.
From Research I've done in the past:
Seed pods, growing on the trunk and main branches are harvested and opened with sharp blades to reveal creamy white cacao beans which darken, then ferment under banana leaves for up to nine days as they lay in the sun. After a 250* to 350* hour-long roasting process, the beans are dehulled leaving small pieces called nibs.
Cocoa powder results from ground roasted beans which have the cocoa butter removed. After the cocoa butter is extracted, dry cakes of cocoa are ground and sifted to make fine cocoa powder. Most cocoa powder is naturally 97.75% caffeine-free. A 1/2 tablespoon cocoa powder contains about .0002 ounces of caffeine. There is 10 times as much caffeine in a 6-ounce cup of coffee.
The Dutch chemist Coenraad Van Houten added alkali to neutralize the acidity of chocolate and mellow the flavor. This is how the darker Dutch-process cocoa was created. Black cocoa is slightly more bitter and is the darkest cocoa powder available. It is best combined with a Dutch-process cocoa powder. When manufacturers make chocolate bars, the roasted beans are crushed with sugar and vanilla to make chocolate liquor.
The chocolate liquor is refined to evaporate excess moisture and acidity, then it is ground so fine that the mouth no longer perceives the beans as individual particles. After heating and cooling, chocolate is poured into molds, cooled and wrapped to be sold as bittersweet, semisweet or unsweetened chocolate bars, depending on sugar content or lack of it.
This book takes you on a "chocolate" journey. This is a book about the history of chocolate and does contain some rather interesting "chocolate drink formulas."
I guess one of my only objections might include places where the authors called a ritual "spectacular" instead of "detailed/extravagant." It made it seem that they were defending the Aztec's brutal way of life although I'm sure they were not. They just tried to look at the reality of the situation and probably found the rituals rather out of the ordinary. The reason for the rituals seems based on "fear that the world would end."
There also did seem to be some rather morbid uses for chocolate in the past. There is also a passage that says something about a "baseless" claim for chocolate having aphrodisiac properties. We do know that it contains substances, which do produce an "in love" feeling.
What really had my attention was the topic of Crillo beans vs. "Forastero" beans. The Crillo tree produces the best quality beans, while the Forastero produces a more bitter bean. Valrhona Manjari is made exclusively with rare Indian Ocean Crillo beans. This gives the chocolate a winey, bittersweet flavor and incredible aroma.
If you have yet to taste this or use it in cooking, look for it online or by looking for the N.Y. Cake and Baking Distributor catalog or Formaggio Kitchen catalog.
Many chefs swear by this chocolate and I can tell you it is the best I've found besides a chocolate I love called "Peter's Chocolate from Nestle." Nestle chocolate is my ultimate favorite. Especially the milk chocolate. The use of cocoa butter in place of all those other palm oils is rather refreshing. Being one can be highly allergic to palm oils and cottonseed oils and the like.
The difference between the bars is that you can eat Peter's Chocolate straight off the bars, but the Valrhona Manjari bars are a bit bitter on their own. When you mix in a little cream and sugar, it becomes magic.
Valrhona chocolate is of course considered to be one of the finest chocolates in the world. I myself won't use anything but Valrhona Manjari in my Chocolate Ice Cream and Mocha Freeze. I also discovered Valrhona Caraque for use in Truffles. The authors also include the meaning for "Manjari" which is "Sanskrit for "bouquet."
If you are hungry for information about chocolate, this is the best book I've read so far. It is intensely detailed and does seem to have been written because of a love for chocolate!
Have a few cups while you read. Just don't forget the whipped cream and nutmeg! I haven't yet tried a "spicy" version.
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Title: The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars by Joël Glenn Brenner ISBN: 0767904575 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Potato : How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman ISBN: 0865475784 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 25 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Chocolate : The Nature of Indulgence by Ruth Lopez ISBN: 0810904039 Publisher: Harry N. Abrams Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes by Maricel E. Presilla ISBN: 1580081436 Publisher: Ten Speed Press Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately ISBN: 0802139604 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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