For modern Americans, chocolate is a staple of drink and dessert, of snacks and elaborate culinary delights. Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree, native to the American tropics. To many pre-Columbian societies, cacao seeds and their edible products were literally part of their religion and played a central role in their social and economic systems. The sacred drink they made from the seeds was rich in caffeine and bitter to taste (sweet milk chocolate came later). Cameron McNeil has here assembled an impressive stable of scholars to examine all aspects of cacao development and use in Mesoamerica from its discovery to its use by the modern Maya. Appearing as early as 1000 B.C., Mesoamerican chocolate was an important part of rituals associated with birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. It was probably reserved for the ruling elites.
Using the latest in Maya scholarship, including the deciphering of Mesoamerican writing, multi-disciplinary scholars explore the domestication, preparation, representation, and significance of cacao, including its widespread use as currency.
In The Chocolate Tree, ethno-botanist Allen Young chronicles cacao’s journey out of the tropical rainforest, into pre-Columbian gardens, and finally into vast plantations, where he examines the ecological impact of mass cultivation. Young emphasizes the natural history of the cacao tree, thus providing a nice complement to the cultural emphasis of McNeil’s volume. Taken together, these two studies provide the latest and most up to date analysis of one of ancient America’s most important plants and its enormous impact on the native cultures.
