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Chocolate Paperback – October 17, 2006

by Mort Rosenblum (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 42 ratings
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The delectable journey into the world of chocolate--by the award-winning author of Olives

Science, over recent years, has confirmed what chocolate lovers have always known: the stuff is actually good for you. It's the Valentine's Day drug of choice, has more antioxidants than red wine, and triggers the same brain responses as falling in love. Nothing, in the end, can stand up to chocolate as a basic fundament to human life.

In this scintillating narrative, acclaimed foodie Mort Rosenblum delves into the complex world of chocolate. From the mole poblano (chile-laced chicken with chocolate) of ancient Mexico to the contemporary French chocolatiers who produce the palets d'or (bite-sized, gold-flecked bricks of dark chocolate) to the vast empires of Hershey, Godiva, and Valrhona, Rosenblum follows the chocolate trail the world over. He visits cacao plantations; meets with growers, buyers, makers, and tasters; and investigates the dark side of the chocolate trade as well as the enduring appeal of its product. Engaging, entertaining, and revealing, Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light is an intriguing foray into this "food of the gods."

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  1. Print length
    306 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    North Point Press
  4. Publication date
    October 17, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    5.51 x 0.77 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0865477302
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0865477308
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A fascinating account of the history and mystery of chocolate.” ―David Shaw, Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Mort Rosenblum was a special correspondent to the Associated Press and an editor of the International Herald Tribune. He is the author of, most recently, A Goose in Toulouse and Olives (both FSG). He lives in Paris, France.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ North Point Press; First Edition (October 17, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 306 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0865477302
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0865477308
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 0.77 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 42 ratings

About the author

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Mort Rosenblum

Mort Rosenblum

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Mort Rosenblum is a Paris-based reporter, author, and journalism professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Since 1965, he has covered stories on seven continents, from the Vietnam War to tango dancing by the Seine. He was editor of the International Herald Tribune, special correspondent for The Associated Press, and founding editor of Dispatches quarterly. His 13 books include Coups and Earthquakes and Who Stole the News? He also grows olives in Provence.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Vishishta
    5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on chocolate
    Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Love this book—the most comprehensive research on chocolate I’ve ever read. Bought it for my friend who is a chef and a chocolate lover and he liked it too. I recommend all this writer’s books.
    One person found this helpful
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  • D. Woollard
    4.0 out of 5 stars a scholarly look at a popular treat
    Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2011
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    Many books about chocolate are filled with passion and love for the subject, that's less the case here as Mort Rosenbaum approaches his subject with a seasoned journalist's dedication and thoroughness. Yet, it's the moments of chocophile delight that enliven this book, particularly when he goes to Mexico in search of the perfect mole. Rosenbaum covers everyone from Milton Hershey to Michel Cluizel, in this book which is really a series of connected essays that provide a global picture of chocolate at all price points.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Mariette Vedder
    5.0 out of 5 stars I would love to URGE you for educating yourself more about this ...
    Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Again, I would love to URGE you for educating yourself more about this oh so healthy food; the dark chocolate that is.
    One cannot read too much about the subject so just grab one!
    Mariette's Back to Basics
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable chocolate-themed read
    Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2005
    Verified Purchase
    This book provides a number of charming vignettes into different aspects of the world of chocolate. It is not (nor intends to be) a complete history - it is more like a collection of chocolate themed essays, organized like a travel book, collected during the author's remarkable voyage of chocolate discovery.

    As an indication of how involving the book is, many readers (including myself) report the need to consume large amounts of chocolate while reading!
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  • Paul Druckman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2015
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    Wonderful read
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  • Gramma B
    4.0 out of 5 stars Learn about what you eat.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    The book is very interesting and I learned a great deal about chocolate. Now I know what to look for when buying chocolate. It does occasionally seem repetitive but I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in food.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • B. Marold
    5.0 out of 5 stars Biography of Great Product. Excellent Read
    Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2005
    `Chocolate - A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light' by culinary journalist, Mort Rosenblum reads as a collection of essays on various aspects of the contemporary world of chocolate and its history, going back to pre-Columbian America.

    Anyone who has read Rosenblum's excellent book, `Olives', will recognize the style of this book, which seems to jump from one time, place, and situation to another with little rhyme or reason. The narrative is neither chronological nor in the order in which cacao is grown, harvested, refined, formed into wholesale chocolate, and used as an ingredient in truffles, bonbons, and other confections. There is actually a lot of good sense to this structure (or lack of it) in that you are much less likely to become bored with the tale.

    Rosenblum is not a culinary practitioner such as Elizabeth David, Julia Child or contemporary chocolate writer David Lebovitz (to whom Rosenblum owes a considerable debt, as Lebovitz shared information with Rosenblum, in spite of the fact that Lebovitz was writing his own book on chocolate). He is also not an observer of human gastronomic desires such as M.F.K. Fisher. He is not even a hybrid of these two breeds, the culinary columnist, such as James Villas, Jeffrey Steingarten, or John Thorne, who deal in both appetites and techniques. Rosenblum is a rather rare breed of journalist who specializes in writing about food, but seems to have no overriding passion for the subject. He simply seems to be interested in the subject, and, he is a very, very good observer and reporter of what he sees. The writers with the most similar approach seems to be Eric Schlosser (author of `Fast Food Nation') who, like Rosenblum, is as much interested in the economics of a food business as with taste. These writers are more like one another than they are like other writers I have mentioned, although Rosenblum is much less polemical than Schlosser.

    Unlike the subjects of `Olives' and `A Goose in Toulouse', where the author had an intimate connection with his subject before he began writing his book, Rosenblum was not intimately familiar with chocolate up to about two years ago. Thus, virtually all his historical information is from secondary sources, albeit, very, very good secondary sources, some dating back to the writings of the early Spanish Conquistadors. His modern information; however, is all based on interviews with primary sources, with some help from Lebovitz and a contemporary chocolate expert, Chloe Doutre-Roussel. And, just as his `Olives' book contained no recipes for sauteeing with olive oil or constructing salads or tapenades with olives, this book contains not one wit of instruction on how to do things with chocolate. For that, see Lebovitz' excellent `The Great Book of Chocolate'.

    This is not to say there is no practical information in this book. One of the biggest revelations should be no surprise to anyone who reads about food on a regular basis. That is, our familiar Hershey's chocolate is about as similar to fine chocolate from Europe and American producers such as Sharfen-Berger as a Big Mac is to an entrée of boeuf au pauvre prepared at Thomas Keller's Bouchon or even at Tony Bourdain's Les Halles restaurant. And, this has nothing to do with European skill versus American ignorance. As a product, cacao has a lot in common with other natural products with characteristic terroir, such as olives, coffee, and grapes, leading to differences in the products made from these materials. A very high volume producer such as Hershey simply cannot deal with these variations, so they do everything needed to smooth out these differences as they use the very cheapest cacao they can get their hands on.

    The big picture which develops in the course of this book is that the world of chocolate processing is complex, and things have to be done just right at every stage along the route in order to produce world class chocolate. This world is roughly divided into those who grow cacao in the tropics, gather it, dry it, and ferment it; those who buy dried cacao nibs and process it into bar chocolate, the raw material for fine chocolatiers, the most familiar of whom to Americans is probably Jacques Torres.

    I confess that most chocolate history was less interesting to me than the shenanigans of modern chocolate businesses and chocolatiers. Just as I was surprised to have the belief about Hershey confirmed in a big way, I was also surprised to find that the widely touted Valrhona brand of French chocolate may be one of the best brands in the world, but it is by no means the largest maker of fine chocolate. That honor goes to Callebaut, also in France. But, Valrhona did present some of the most interesting stories in the book, as its representatives seem to have turned rudeness and chocolate politics into a rather gross art, in high contrast to the quality of their product.

    This, of course, is exactly the same interest of Rosenblum's earlier books, although chocolate is not as heavily embroiled in European Union politics as is olive oil, as I suspect the difference in money involved is somewhere on the order of 100 to 1. And, just as Valrhona is about 1/10 the size of Callebaut, the leading American producer of fine chocolate, Sharfen-Berger, produces but 1/100 of Valrhona.

    Near the end of the book, Rosenblum seems to remember that he is talking about a food and offers a chapter on nutritional research done on chocolate in the last hundred years or so. In a nutshell, most stories, whether ancient (as in Aztec) or modern (as in diet doctor) are somewhat mistaken. Most of the bad things attributed to chocolate are actually due to the sugar in chocolate candy. Chocolate itself has lots of things which are either good for you or make you feel good, with little or no undesirable side effects.

    Every major food deserves a book like this and one like Lebovitz' work.
    38 people found this helpful
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  • Kevin Martinez
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great
    Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2014
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    The book was entertaining and provides a good overview of the chocolate industry. However, it describes it at a very high level and is lacking some "meat".
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Adrenalin Streams
    5.0 out of 5 stars Properly researched and well written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    I'm not one that likes journalists as a rule. But, get a good investigative journalist and get him caught up in a subject as fascinating as chocolate, and you're on to a winner. This is a book that flows as beautifully as melted chocolate in terms of writing style. And yet a lot of research has gone into the book, which gives it depth. In particular, I like the way that Rosenblum has taken the time to visit a very significant proportion of the world's greatest chocolate bar maunufacturers and chocolatiers. This provides the reader with a wonderful insight into what is required to make top quality chocolate as well as what happens when you place commercial aims above that quality. Good chocolate can be made anywhere, and the author explodes the long held myths that only the Belgians and Swiss know anything about chocolate. The section on the UK is a bit thin, but if Rosenblum had been writing this book today he would undoubtedly have marvelled at the magical creations of William Curley (voted Britain's Best Chocolatier in 2007, 2008 and 2009), the Gordon Ramsay of the British chocolate world, or perhaps Paul A. Young, chocolate's Heston Blumenthal. This is an excellent and informative book. My only criticism is that I'm not sure I really needed a whole chapter devoted to Mexican mole, a chicken/turkey dish with a chocolate sauce!
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