Wild Chocolate

(by Rowan Jacobsen)

Given the choice between chocolate and something else (like: chocolate cake or lemon cake; chocolate candy or sour candy), I usually choose the “something else.” But I like chocolate too, and reading this book makes me excited to try some of the single-origin/bean-to-bar chocolates that Jacobsen writes about (and in fact, I ordered some from Caputo’s, a specialty food store that also features in the book). I learned a lot about cacao and its history and where it grows and how chocolate is made from this book, and while I found the structure somewhat disjointed (it jumps around in time and place and there are various interludes/digressions) I liked Jacobsen’s writing style, particularly when he’s talking about the trips he’s taken to places where wild cacao grows, from his trip down the Mamoré River in Bolivia in 2010 to his 2022 trip down the Juruá River in Brazil.