"Chocolate – ‘the food of the Gods’ – has had a long and eventful history. Its story is expertly told here by the doyen of Maya studies, Michael Coe, and his late wife, Sophie. The book begins 3,000 years ago in the Mexican jungles and goes on to draw on aspects of archaeology, botany and socio-economics. Used as currency and traded by the Aztecs, chocolate arrived in Europe via the conquistadors, and was soon a favourite drink with aris ..."
"It seems strange to think that even the humble chocolate bar has a long and interesting history. This history reaches far back to the earliest civilisation in the Americas, and it was the Olmecs not the Aztecs who can be rightly named as the inventors of chocolate. Told with flair and wit, this history of cacoa looks at its ancient Mexican roots, questioning how it became the food of the gods, its ritual significance, and how it was u ..."
"Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe. Olmec stone monument should turn up with an
indisputable depiction of a cacao tree or pod, we were left with historical
linguistics rather than archaeology as our only source of data. But this pessimism
... have shown that the first potteryusing culture of Mesoamerica, dubbed “Barra”
by the archaeologists, was remarkably advanced in ceramic technology, with
delicate, sophisticated, neckless jars—so de ..."
"Este relato acerca de uno de los alimentos predilectos del mundo se basa en la botánica, la arqueología, la socioeconomía y el arte culinario para presentar por primera vez una historia completa y precisa del chocolate. La narración comienza hace unos tres mil años en las selvas de México y de América Central con el árbol Theobroma cacao y los complejos procesos necesarios para transformar sus amargas semillas en lo que hoy conocemos co ..."