Wild chocolate Across the Americas in search of cacao's soul

Food writer Jacobsen (Truffle Hound) traces in this thrilling chronicle chocolate's "dark journey from regional delicacy to industrial commodity" and recent efforts to restore its original varietals. The tradition of drinking roasted cacao beans took hold about 4,000 years ago across South America, where the beans were so valuable they were sometimes used as currency. Spain conquered Mexico in the 16th century and spread the delicacy through Europe and the new world, fueling the cultivation of "new hybrid varieties" that were less flavorful but hardy and productive enough to meet the growing global demand; by the start of the 20th century, those "bulk beans" made up 95% of the world cacao production. Tracking the movement to revive heirloom chocolate, Jacobsen spotlights enterprising chocolate makers who scour the globe for new sources of "specialty cacao"; members of sustainability nonprofits working with Amazonian cacao farmers; and "choconerds" who popularize specialty chocolate bars via stores and websites. In the process, he draws out the complex global connections--and, often, corporate harms--underpinning the chocolate industry without losing sight of its pleasures ("There was a flash of bliss, a momentary bolstering, as if the gods had my back.... I felt a wormhole open," he writes of his first time eating an heirloom chocolate bar). Readers will be eager to sink their teeth into this. (Oct.)

A spirited quest for the perfect cacao bean. Food journalist Jacobsen opens his comprehensive account in Oaxaca, Mexico, not far from a source of cacao and its resulting chocolate, so prized by the Aztecs that they expanded their empire far from its heartland to gain control of the Pacific coastal region where it grew. All cacao is, he writes, "ridiculously rich," with a fat content of at least 55 percent, but some of the world's most prized cacao, found in remote tropical forests from Mexico south to its homeland in the Bolivian jungle east of the Andes, is far richer still. These hard-to-find "wild cacao" plants fuel the gourmet chocolatiers of the world, such as the Swiss producer Felchlin, supplied by a German agronomist in Bolivia who built and lost a fortune in the chocolate trade but, for all his travails, can't stop searching for the cacao grail. Jacobsen goes far afield himself, meeting some wonderfully weird characters and tracing their finds to chocolate makers in the U.S. and Europe. A skilled food historian with a sharp eye for the economics of the delicious, he also peppers his prose with interesting tidbits, including the boom-and-bust ways of lumpen chocolatiers like Hershey, which once commandeered the entire cacao output of Belize but then, when market conditions changed, left growers holding the proverbial bag. Of particular interest to budding entrepreneurs is the fact that several of Jacobsen's subjects are young women who have carved a place for themselves as brokers for the organically grown, sustainable cacao whose growers are paid a premium. There's plenty of adventure left in the game, Jacobsen writes: "In all likelihood, the Amazon and other remote corners of Latin America harbor other unique families of cacao waiting for their big moment. The search continues." A treat for literate, adventure-loving foodies, best accompanied by a bespoke chocolate bar. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.