Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao's Soul

"[This] engaging narrative history doubles as an adventure tale, taking readers from Montezuma's treasure vaults to shrewd profiteers' warehouses. Recent years have seen a reclamation of cacao farming by small, sustainable, organic farmers using traditional methods but also modern brokers to bring their products to a worldwide audience, fueling a cacao renaissance." --Washington Post

"[A] masterwork . . . The greatest appeal of Wild Chocolate comes in its slow, page-by-page seduction. After absorbing Jacobsen's prose about bars produced from wild cacao, you can't help but want to try some yourself." --Tim Carman, American Scholar

"Thrilling . . . Jacobsen draws out the complex global connections-and, often, corporate harms-underpinning the chocolate industry without losing sight of its pleasures . . . Readers will be eager to sink their teeth into this." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A spirited quest for the perfect cacao bean... a skilled food historian with a sharp eye for the economics of the delicious, [Jacobsen] also peppers his prose with interesting tidbits...A treat for literate, adventure-loving foodies, best accompanied by a bespoke chocolate bar." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"An amazing adventure through forests, down rivers, and into the depths of history to uncover the beauty and culture of cacao, truly the food of the gods. Rowan Jacobsen is a master storyteller, and Wild Chocolate tells one of the best stories under the sun." --José Andres, chef and humanitarian

"Chocolate is delicious, but not simple: It can be a source of impoverishment and deforestation, or a force for environmental and cultural regeneration; that's a choice. Wild Chocolate provides an inspiring look at the people in the American tropics who are doing it right." --Mark Bittman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING and ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, JUNK

"I learned so much! Wild Chocolate offers a rare intoxicating glimpse into a fascinating and notoriously opaque supply chain. Whether traveling up slender tributaries in the Amazon, bushwhacking through Central American rainforest, or providing front row seats to a master producer casting bars, Rowan Jacobsen transforms the quest for heritage chocolate into a swashbuckling adventure that will enrich every bite of chocolate you consume." --Benjamin Lorr, author of THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES

"Jacobsen is among our best writers documenting the connections between delectable foodstuffs and the besieged ecosystems and communities that underpin them. In his latest, he takes us on a journey from chocolate's origins to its current crisis to its imperiled but potentially delicious future. If you doubt that life without good chocolate is worth living, this is your book." --Tom Philpott, author of PERILOUS BOUNTY

"If chocolate is your thing then this is your book-a Rosetta Stone for decoding everything this ancient and fascinating culinary tradition brings to the table." --Paul Greenberg, New York Times bestselling author of FOUR FISH

"Rowan Jacobsen is America's most trusted and lyrical food writer, and Wild Chocolate transcends the eloquence of all his other books. We will never see nor taste chocolate in the same way again after this olfactory odyssey through its pleasures and perils." --Gary Nabhan, MacArthur Fellow and author of AGAVE SPIRITS

"Written with the detail and deep research I've come to expect from Jacobsen, this book is an invitation to consider a familiar food in a new way and to get to know chocolate intimately. It will leave you drooling and ready to commit to seeking out these experiences-and melting bites of rare chocolate-yourself." --Sarah Lohman, author of ENDANGERED EATING