This book checked all kinds of boxes for me. It was a foodie book. It is mostly set in South America and I'm trying to read more books set there. It is a story of trying to set up systems of sustainable agriculture by moving back in time and growing wild cacao varieties in the shade of mature rainforest trees.

When Europeans fell in love with chocolate during colonial times, they exported cacao production from South America to Africa because it was closer to Europe.  They favored trees that would produce in monocultures on plantations.  In doing that they selected for varieties that weren't as flavorful but would store better than the traditional cacao that was grown in pre-contact South America.  Some of those varieties remain though and there are companies who are trying to build a bean-to-bar market for them.  It is hard going though.  The harvests can be small.  They may be working in areas frequented by drug cartels.  The weather may cause the beans to mold instead of ferment properly or make transporting them to market all but impossible. 

I plan on buying a few of the bars from the makers featured in this book from a speciality store for Christmas.  I'm really interested in trying them to see if someone without a super refined palate can tell the difference in the terroir of the chocolate.

The author seems to know a lot about chocolate and is passionate about it. It was clear there was extensive research on the subject. However, that didn't make the material digestible or overly fun to follow along. Fairly dry execution for an intriguing subject.

This book was a great combination of personal narrative and interesting information about chocolate and how it ends up in its most familiar forms. For such a beloved food, we widely separate it from its actual origins, and it was fascinating to have a portrait painted of what a more sustainable future looks like for chocolate and cacao.

Chocolate in it's modern sweet and solid form is a mainstay of the daily American diet, but this largess is not without cost. Much of it comes from African land that was formerly rain forest and is maintained and harvested by child age workers despite pledges and promises to do better by the chocolate industry. American author and journalist Rowan Jacobsen's latest work, Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao's Soul shows how it never needed to be this way.

Cacao (or Theobroma cacao) is a small tree that grows seed pods know as cocoa beans that after being processed (fermented, dried, roasted and ground) are the main ingredient of chocolates. While it widely grown in Africa, it is native to the American Tropics where it can still be found having survived from its ancient use by the Maya and Aztec civilizations.

Wild Chocolate follows Jacobsen's reporting of the bean to bar sustainability movement that served as a counter to the US and European traditional chocolates. Chapters alternate between figures and there efforts to find and sustain supply chains to create consumable chocolate with unique flavors and the surprising hazards including paying off drug smugglers, life in a tropical rain forest or perfecting cacao processing. The book also highlights were readers can purchase some of the feature companies products'

Recommended reading for readers or researchers of sustainable industries, food industry or travel writing.

How much do you know about cacao?

I learned so much from this book, but reading it didn't feel like a lesson. It felt like traveling through Mexico and the Amazon along with its intrepid author Rowan Jacobsen. It felt like flying in a prop plane over the jungle, moving up and down treacherous rivers in rickety boats, sleeping in a hammock out in the open, and navigating vicious gnats, deadly eels, and intimidating men with guns.

Along the way, I absorbed all the knowledge I could ever need about the origins of cacao and how chocolate is made, and met a panel of fascinating people behind the bean-to-bar movement.

Reads like an extended essay you might have found in the Best American Travel or Food Writing anthologies. Which have now returned from extinction and been combined into one?

Wild Chocolate comes out October 8, but if you pre-order, it will help boost first week sales, which is good for authors. If you don't have any book budget at the moment, you can ask your local library to order a copy.

Books are the best.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This book dove into how we go from bean to bar. It was very well researched and an interesting read. For anyone wanting to learn where cacao/chocolate comes from, pick up a copy.

Part epicurean delight, part history lesson, and part Amazonian adventure, this was a wonderful romp of a read. I love Jacobsen's writing style and the way he can dig down into his subject matter without getting too didactic. He does a wonderful job of sharing the passion and tenacity of the major (and minor) players in the field of bean-to-bar chocolate. And yes, I was ready to jump on the Caputo's website and place an order as soon as I finished the book..