Arms & the Man, George Bernard Shaw (1894)
Bookcase Location: TOP SHELF - Essential Buy It Here Arms & the Man; George Bernard Shaw (theatrical play, 1894; published book 1898); basis for the 1908 operetta Chocolate Soldier (later made into silent film in 1915 & Broadway play 1947) With apologies to...
The Jaguar & the Cacao Tree by Birgitte Rasine (2016)
Faulkner noted “fiction is often the best fact”. Little wonder metaphors suit Mayan cosmology better than archeology & anthropology. Just as lines of great poetics break the...
The New Taste of Chocolate, by Maricel Presilla (2001)
Bookcase Location: TOP SHELF - Essential Dr. Maricel Presilla is largely responsible for putting premium chocolate on the map in the USA. Arguably our finest public educator, if there were only one book to have on the subject, this would probably be it. New Taste is...
The True History of Chocolate, by Sophie & Michael Coe (1996)
Bookcase Location: TOP SHELF - Essential Get it Here Both an academic & popular title, True History is an authoritative social account of cacáo & a compendium of the tree’s rich lore & voyage from the Americas to global phenomenon. Literally &...
DEEP TASTING: CHOCOLATE & WHISKEY by Rev. Dr. R.M. Peluso
Wine & chocolate pairings form ruinous marriages that quickly sue for divorce in the court of oral chambers. Conversely, chocolate & spirits – whiskey, cognac, armagnac, et.al. -- succeed fabulously well together. So well they hook-up in palette porno....
Deep Tasting: A Chocolate Lover’s Guide to Meditation by Rev. Dr. R.M. Peluso
Seek & Ye Shall Find: Faith, Chocolate, & Enlightenment Buy it Here FULL DISCLOSURE: Rev. Dr. R.M. Peluso is a contributing editor to the C-spot®. The book reviewed below mentions the C-spot® & discusses her work with, & the relationship to it. Other...
Der Schokoladentester
It's been a couple of years since director of sourcing & QA manager Georg Bernardini left Coppeneur Chocolate, a barsmith that vaulted to stratospheric heights around 2009 on the strength of his work on seed selection & applying the German art of engineering,...
On the Chocolate Trail, by Deborah Prinz (2012)
Everyone knows folks insanely devoted to chocolate (ahem) but who knew Jews are meshuga (crazy) for it? Leave it to a yente Rabbi to get all farklempt over it. Rabbi Debbie Prinz. The working title of her book – Jews on the Chocolate Trail – might God-smack of some...
Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco & Chocolate in the Atlantic World, by Marcy Norton (2008)
Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures (“SGPP”) - a title that resounds as an answer back at RC Zaehner’s Mysticism, Sacred & Profane (1961) & whose subtitle faintly echoes...
Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, edited by Cameron McNeil (2006)
Bookcase Location: MIDDLE SHELF - Permanent Collection A scholarly compendium for which the title is the synopsis. McNeil has convened a symposium of world-class scholars. The book gets off to a halting start on the tree’s botany that suffers from an over-reliance on...
Candy Freak, by Steve Almond (2004)
Bookcase Location: MIDDLE SHELF - Permanent Collection Good title. Good chapter headings too: Night of the Living Freak; Last Man in America with Black Jack Gum; In the Belly of the Freak; Southbound with the Hammers Down - Southern-Fried Freak; Marshmallow Parallax;...
The Genetic Diversity of Cacao & its Utilization, by Basil Bartley (2005)
Bookcase Location: MIDDLE SHELF - Permanent Collection Bertrand Russell listed a couple motives for reading a book: either enjoyment or to boast about it. He might’ve added a 3rd: for learning.... on what to avoid reading in the future. No matter what stack of...
psyche delicacies – coffee, chocolate, chiles, kava & cannabis & why they’re good for you, by Chris Kilham (2001)
Bookcase Location: MIDDLE SHELF - Permanent Collection OK, the alliterative subtitle may be tripp-indued, but this book brings the facts & laughs. Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter, trekking the wilds in search of potions to return to civilization like a...
Chocolate: The Sweet History, by Beth Kimmerle (2005)
Bookcase Location: MIDDLE SHELF - Permanent Collection Nostalgic trip down memory lane – even for kids just born this morning. Great photos of posters, trademarks, labels, ads, & more. Like Thompson Candy’s pack of Camels called Humps chocolate “cigarettes”. And...
BREAD WINE CHOCOLATE by Simran Sethi
Eat Pray Love meet Bread Wine Chocolate. In a rousing book, arousing both envy & pity, Simran Sethi re-tells a saga with updated vignettes, narration, & an impending tick-tock doomsday scenario. Unfortunate subtitle – The Slow Loss of Foods We Love -- for...
Chocolate as Medicine: A Quest Over the Centuries, by Philip Wilson & Jeffrey Hurst (2012)
Adapted from the review of Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO, Natural Medicine Journal, February 2013 Welcome to the end of an anomalous period in which some distortion in the time-space continuum appears to have turned things inside out, upside down, & backwards. For...
The Great Book of Chocolate, by David Lebovitz (2004)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention Oozes forth pinker & frothier than that staple of upmarket restaurants in the late 20th century – the molten chocolate cake. Easy to picture this guy laced up with the apron on, swirling & twirling chocolate...
Chilies to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World, edited by Nelson Foster & Linda S. Cordell (1992)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention A weighty collection of essays from esteemed scholars, employing a multi-disciplinary / inter-departmental approach. Spanning agronomy to archeology & anthropology, Chilies to Chocolate covers the broad range of...
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark & Light, by Mort Rosenblum (2005)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention A behind-the-scenes investigative report on the state of chocolate around the world... at the turn of the millennium. Mort Rosenblum is a journalist, wordsmith, & transplanted food-hound living among the olive...
Cocoa & Chocolate: Their History from Plantation to Consumer, by Arthur W. Knapp
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention Written almost a hundred years ago & reprinted in 2007. Tight synopsis of the plant’s history, cultivation, & manufacture, with half the book being pictures. Much of the info is still valid today, especially...
The Chocolate-Plant & its Products, by Walter Baker & Co. (1891)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention A curio & quaint booklet published in 1891, before Milton Hershey even got into the game, let alone chocolate becoming the American candy rage. Walter Baker, the 1st commercial chocolate manufacturer in the USA,...
The Book of Chocolate, published by Flammarion (1995)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention Coffee table material, sumptuously photographed with engravings, paintings, portraits, graphs, maps, & collectible memorabilia. A compilation with each chapter written by different author(s). Contains the...
The Chocolate Companion, Chantal Coady (2006)
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention Somewhat outdated, this compendium is larded with a repetitive human-interest narration ('he grew up the son of a master baker, in the little town of.... went to the École of Culinary Arts to study under master...
Chocolat (book; movie 2000), by Joanne Harris
Bookcase Location: BOTTOM SHELF - Honorable Mention Bonbons the conduit for this piece of Magic Realism Schlockolat. English-speaking cast of heavyweights set incongruously in an insular French village where the devil’s apprentice herself, Vianne Rocher (Juliette...