CHOCOLATE UNWRAPPED

An expansive look at how cacao beans are grown and processed, with an overview of chocolate’s many uses, from early Mesoamerican medicine to modern fun-size Halloween treat.

Characterizing the cacao tree as a “Goldilocks plant,” Christensen begins with an exacting picture of the just-right environmental conditions it requires to prosper, then takes its fruit from harvest through fermentation and roasting. Though she only briefly acknowledges the crucial role added sugar plays in making finished chocolate palatable, she does offer the amusing observation that the main chemical that makes chocolate yummy, phenylethylamine, is also found in sauerkraut and kimchee. The author doesn’t shy from noting European colonialism’s dismal effects on Central and South American cultures, or its enduring legacy of enslaving and mistreating industrial workers. She remarks approvingly on recent efforts to grow cacao sustainably and, in pointedly nonjudgmental tones, to make synthetic chocolate. And, along with tasty tidbits about the place of chocolate in foods from churros and s’mores to Valentine’s Day candies (first marketed in heart-shaped boxes in 1861) and Hanukkah gelt, she tucks in an interview with a West African chocolatier and a made-from-scratch recipe for hot chocolate that starts with fermented whole beans. Human figures in Baum’s cartoon illustrations are typically depicted in a range of skin colors.

A box of bonbons for confirmed chocophiles.