The True History of Chocolate

The True History of Chocolate is a popular history of chocolate by Sophie and Michael D. Coe, published in 1996.

Sophie Coe was a scholar on the cuisine of the pre-Contact Americas, and she developed the concept for a book on the history of chocolate out of a paper she presented at the 1988 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. After five years of researching the topic further, she began writing. When she died the following year, her husband Michael completed the writing process. Over the text, the trajectory of chocolate and cacao from Mesoamerica to Europe is articulated, and the Coes propose several theories, including the idea that chocolate originated earlier than previously thought.

The True History of Chocolate was well-received in contemporary reviews for its writing and interdisciplinary research, and has continued to be viewed by scholars as an important text among books on chocolate and food studies generally. Academic Carla Martin describes the text as "the first book in the contemporary era, in English, that took chocolate as a serious field of study", and it has been credited with inspiring research and popular awareness on chocolate's origins. A decade after its release, evidence began to emerge challenging some of the Coes' theories.

Writing

The True History of Chocolate was written by the husband-and-wife duo Michael and Sophie Coe, although originally Sophie was the sole author. She was an established scholar on the cuisine of the pre-Contact Americas.