Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe's The True History of Chocolate (3rd Ed., 2013) brings into perspective the vivid and wide-reaching impact chocolate had among the the world, especially in terms of global history. The point was raised by Joseph, James, and Eric respectfully about chocolate's place within the marketplace, or in this case a very globalized marketplace. The Spanish bringing chocolate from Mesoarmerica in the sixteenth century, flowing and making its way through various nation's throughout the centuries, had an impact of considerable importance among respective economies but also impacted class, purchasing power of the classes that consume (and produce) chocolate, culture, social habits, health and well-being, and politics. But the point the monograph brings up that is crucial is that out of all nation's that develop, sell, and consume chocolate, what happened to its original producers and consumer's and their place within the market? The last chapter of the text, "Chapter Nine: The Ethics of Chocolate" argues that the third world producers of chocolate in Kekchi Maya of Belize have a role of chocolate, especially within the market. Enter the chocolate product "Maya Gold." It's history is surrounded by American corporations encouraging local Kekchi maya farmers in the mid-1980s, "... to substitute high-yield, hybrid (trinitario) cacao trees for the semi-wild trees that they had traditionally harvested on their small plots. Even though the introduced disease-susceptible variety required large amounts of costly herbicides and pesticides, many farmers were lured into this enterprise by a promise price of a dollar per pound for the beans when they matured..." (262). This switching crops for a new cacao tree gave the Kekchi hope of increasing their monetary gain and the opportunities of being apart of the global-capitalist driven marketplace. These ventures further no less fueled by an American corporation. Yet, the drop in the cacao market resulted in only being offered 27 cents/pound (263). This drastically sets back these farmers. Enter Josephine Fairly and the Green&Black company. Off from success with "pesticide-free African cacao," Fairly was able to contract with the local Maya Cacao farmers and offer them, "...48 pence (75 cents) a pound--if they would give up the fertilizers and pesticides; so back went the Maya to their three-acre plots. They could now afford to send their children to secondary schools and their sick to distant hospitals"--by 1994, the monograph notes that the product sold within shops in the United Kingdom (262-3). The efforts, once again led by Western-driven entrepreneurs and the Western economy, gave new life to the Maya farming community and their ability to produce a product that assists with providing more suitable living conditions. Moreover, they themselves were able to prosper within the international economy/market by aiding to produce the necessary commodity (chocolate) used to make "Maya Gold" that by the 1990s was sold in foreign stores thousands of miles distant from their shores in Mesoamerica. What this further demonstrates is that chocolate, coming back to its original homeland, still acts as the primary player and the driving agent. The monograph states, "It is fitting that this recent episode in chocolate's history concerns the Kekchi Maya, for it seems to have been they who introduced chocolate to Europe when they presented their foam-topped beverage to Prince Philip of Spain in 1544" (263). The point here argues that through chocolate's many travels across various nation's and their development of chocolate within the global marketplace, its originators still have a respective place within both the international community and market--the Kekchi are given identity and a sense of consciousness as an essential vital contributor to the global economy in terms of chocolate.
While engaged with the text, there was an issue I found quite perplexing. It was whether the text presents chocolate as a 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' history and if it switched/altered between the two, when and how did switch or alter? While it does start with European consumption as a matter of top-down history, chocolate being consumed largely by elites but then over time, it becomes not only consumed but produced and sold by those of middle and lower classes, the common man so-to-speak. The monograph makes it somewhat difficult to follow exactly when chocolate became more resonated with more common man of Western society. Was this attributed to changes in market forces, class shifts, overall changes in society and culture, or a combination of these aforementioned components? Or was it simply the change from drinking chocolate to eating it as a solid as the main contributing factor? This I find somewhat difficult or problematic with the monograph.
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