A Compendium of Chocolate Wisdom

[lsanderson]

By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: March 31, 2009

Dig deeply enough into a 1,000-page book and you never know what you will find. “Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage” is a scholarly tome, full of articles on chocolate’s connection to anthropology, agriculture, religion, ethics, art, medicine and technology. But it offers plenty of surprises, too, like the explanation of how chocolate was a recommended treatment for smallpox in Boston in the 18th century. And how in the winter of 1762-63, soldiers near Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York often mixed their ration of chocolate with wine. More