World Fair Trade Day is almost here, with events taking place May 4 – 19, 2013.  The following is a list of films that you might like to see in honor of Fairly Traded products around the world.

 

FAIR TRADE FILMS from The Fair Trade Resource Network

 

FILMS ABOUT FAIR TRADE COFFEE

(In order of film duration)

Films are great educational tools, offering viewers opportunities to better understand the ways in which products are grown and/or processed. More importantly, the films below exhibit the strong connections that we have with those who make the goods we use and the food we eat.

• After the Harvest: Fighting Hunger in the Coffeelands

By Optic Nerve Productions ~ 20 minutes ~ 2010 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “The film illustrates how small-scale coffee farmers, even if active in FLO’s Fair Trade Certification system, in Latin America go hungry, get insufficient nutrition, and increase personal debt 3-8 months of the year. A recent survey of small-scale coffee farmers in Central and South America found two-thirds of the farmers saying they were hungry during ’the thin months’, after the harvest. Apparently this food insecurity is widely unknown in the global coffee industry.”

Summary/Review: This documentary was created to accompany a Consumers International report: “A short film that brings the day-to-day challenges of ‘the thin months’ to life in the voices of coffee farmers from Mexico and elsewhere. Stories show the successes of creative projects that have been established to eliminate this annual period of food insecurity.”

See or download the film at After the Harvest

• From Crop to Cup

Lutheran World Relief ~ 22 min ~ 2009 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This accessible video gives a good introduction to the coffee process and how Fair Trade makes a difference for farmers and the environment.”

Summary/Review: Video explains that consumers can do right by  Nicaraguan farmers by purchasing Fair Trade coffee like Equal Exchange, partner of the Lutheran World Relief Coffee project.

Watch it online, OR get a free DVD by calling 1-800-LWR-LWR-2.

• Coffee with the Taste of the Moon

Organic Consumers Association ~ 30 minutes ~ 2005 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This film explains the effects of the Fair Trade and Organic movements in the coffee market.”

Summary/Review: The documentary film introduces viewers to the people who are producers and consumers of the most traded commodity in the world after oil- coffee.  From the point of view of the narrator, who one day wonders about the impact of his morning cup, we learn about the powerful and promising sustainability efforts of the rapidly growing Fair Trade and Organic movement.

To acquire the film, contact the Organic Consumers Association.

• Buyer Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification

John De Graaf ~ 55 minutes ~ 2006 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This high quality documentary offers a balanced look into product certification – of Fair Trade coffee and timber – and the essential role it plays in today’s global economy.”

Summary/Review: Buyer Be Fair takes viewers to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada to explore how conscious consumers and businesses can use the market to promote social justice and environmental sustainability through product labeling, with a focus on Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certified wood. This television special reaches beyond the choir to present the promise of product certification to a wide audience.

Buy the film

• Birdsong and Coffee: A Wake Up Call

Old Dog Documentaries ~ 56 minutes ~ 2005 ~ General Audiences and Academic Settings

FTRN says: “Birdsong and Coffee is a high-quality, moving and informative documentary exhibiting the interdependence of producers, consumers, and the ecosystem.”

Summary/Review: Birdsong and Coffee uses a series of interviews to communicate the sincere, respectful relationship that exists through Fair Trade among the parties involved in coffee production. In this film we hear from experts and students, from coffee lovers and bird lovers, and-most importantly-from coffee farmers themselves. We learn how their lives and ours are inextricably linked, economically and environmentally.

Buy the film and access its companion discussion guide.

• Black Gold

Mark and Nick Francis ~ 77 minutes ~ 2005 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This documentary has captured the dilemma of the coffee farmer: how to get a fair price for quality coffee in a market that is set up only to make money for powerful international traders in cities far from the farm.”

Summary/Review: Black Gold follows Tadesse Meskela, the leader of an Ethiopian coffee cooperative, on his travels through Africa and around the world seeking a fair price for the coffee grown by cooperative members before they are forced to declare bankruptcy. Meskela travels to London and Seattle in an attempt to find a coffee buyer willing to pay a fair price, while the film documents the enormous power of world coffee traders and the double-dealing of trade ministers during World Trade Organization talks.

Buy the DVD Find out more online

FILMS ABOUT OTHER FAIR TRADE PRODUCTS

(In order of film duration)

• Fair Trade: The Story

TransFair USA ~ 8 minutes ~ 2006 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “Produced by TransFair USA, this short film provides an excellent overview of Fair Trade certification – how it works, what it does, and what it means to producers around the world.”

Summary/Review: TransFair USA talks with farmers in countries of origin to understand how Fair Trade has benefitted them personally, allowing them to send their children to school or to work without chemicals. The producers also talk to retailers in the United States to understand the power of the consumer to effect change just by paying attention to the products they buy every day.

Watch the video online

• Traidcraft in Bangladesh

Mark Batey ~ 9 minutes ~ 2007 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “Produced in the UK, this short presents a colorful look into the process of getting Fair Trade products from villages to warehouses to retail outlets, following a volunteer as she looks at the process firsthand.”

Summary/Review: A Traidcraft volunteer gets a chance to meet a group of women in Bangladesh who produce some of the goods she sells. She discovers that Fair Trade has empowered communities like the one she visits where community members have installed proper sanitation facilities, better housing, schools, and proper meals. The film also highlights the way Fair Trade has contributed to women claiming their voice in their community.

Watch the video online

• Calcutta Hilton

Sinclair Enterprises ~ 23 minutes (plus 2 hrs. extra) ~ 2005 ~ High school and above

FTRN says: “This film evidences the power of Fair Trade businesses to radically improve people’s lives. As with many Fair Trade businesses, Freeset offers training, literacy, community, fun and support for vulnerable people.  An inspirational and empowering film showing the many roles people play and benefits they get in a jute bag business.”

Summary/Review: The Hiltons are just your average Kiwi family, but the textile manufacturing business they have established is anything but average. Located on the fringes of Calcutta’s largest red-light district, it gives the women of the area something they have long been denied – the option of leaving the sex trade. “Calcutta Hilton” tells the story of this inspirational business.

Order the DVD from Sinclair Enterprises

• A Thousand Fibers: Binding Together through Fair Trade

H. Bruce Wilson and Partners for Just Trade ~ 33 minutes ~ 2009 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This video is most useful for showing the impact of Fair Trade on producers’ lives. It also is one of the few films that introduces how Fair Trade works in the world of commodities (like chocolate and coffee) as well as in handcrafts, with a special focus on the lives of handcraft artisans in Peru.”

Summary/Review: This film shows real life examples of the Fair Trade Federation’s principles for Fair Trade Organizations. A second version on the same DVD can be used with a Bible study program.

Buy DVD from Partners for Just Trade

• The Dark Side of Chocolate

By Miki Mistrati and U. Robert Romano~ 45 minutes ~ 2010 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This video is most useful for showing the horrors of child labor and trafficked children in W. African cocoa farms that supply major corporations and brands. It also demonstrates the lack of interest by major corporations to solutions like Fair Trade.”

Summary/Review: This film goes undercover to Mali and Ivory Coast to document child trafficking, forced labor and other worst forms of child labor that should have been eliminated under the Cocoa Protocol signed by major chocolate industry groups in 2001. It also shows footage of major chocolate company executives in Europe uninterested in the transgressions and solutions presented by the film.

See trailer and background at The Dark Side of Chocolate

Buy DVD and screening kit from Green America

• Pa Pa Paa

Comic Relief ~ Multiple lengths ~ 2005 ~ Children

FTRN says: “Recommended for its appeal to audiences of all levels, including children.”

Summary/Review: This DVD accompanies a series of educational tools and photographs produced for British schoolteachers to aid in teaching primary school children about Fair Trade and Ghanaian cocoa growers. “Pa Pa Paa” is an informative film presenting facts about the process of harvesting, processing and selling cocoa.

Available to order on DVD

• A Powerful Noise

Sheila C. Johnson ~ 80 minutes ~ 2009 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This film focuses on women’s issues in the developing world, which are an important part of the Fair Trade issue.  One of the three women protagonists in the film starts a Fair Trade agricultural cooperative to provide employment to widows of the Bosnian War.  An inspirational and empowering film .”

Summary/Review: Hanh is an HIV-positive widow in Vietnam. Nada is a survivor of the Bosnian war. And Jacqueline works the slums of Bamako, Mali. Three very different lives. Three vastly different worlds. But they share something in common: Power. These women are each overcoming gender barriers to rise up and claim a voice in their societies. Through their empowerment and ability to empower others, Hanh, Nada and Jacqueline are sparking remarkable changes.

Order the DVD

• The Price of Sugar

Bill Haney~ 90 minutes ~ 2007 ~ General Audience

FTRN says: “This award-winning film shows the efforts to bring Fair Trade to Haiti and exposes the conditions of developing countries without Fair Trade practices.”

Summary/Review: Narrated by Paul Newman, “The Price of Sugar” follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced.

Order the DVD

OTHER ONLINE FILMS

More Fair Trade videos are available on YouTube.

Just a few YouTube videos to recommend:

• Fair Trade: Improving Lives (2009, 2 min.)

The CEO of Fair  Trade USA, Paul Rice, explains how Fair Trade impacts farmers and workers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvLHDxv4B4

• Fair Trade Advert (2007, 1.5 min.)

This minute and a half video features a man trying to get change.  When people don’t have enough change to repay the man in full, they are unwilling to exchange with him even though he doesn’t mind.  It is an interesting analogy to FT prices worldwide, since 86% of people wouldn’t make an unfair trade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfVS1vbXyXo

• Fairtrade Coffee in Uganda (2007, 3.5 min.)

This video by GreenTV explains the process of FT approval for coffee growers in Uganda.  Through interviews, it shows the positive effects in the lives of Ugandan coffee growers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEVozJa13po&feature=related

• Inside Fairtrade fashion – a day in the life of People Tree (6 min.)

This is a really interesting video about a Fair Trade fashion company.  It interviews the founder and other employees, who explain why their work is positive and different from other clothing companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amVmhSaRgnk&NR=1

• Santiago’s Story (2000, 6 min.)

Made by TransFair USA, this is the story of one farmer.  He discusses the challenges in getting a fair price for coffee and the effects of switching to FT coffee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9U1q1g8oDc

• Free Vs. Fair Trade (2007, 10 min.)

This is a really well put together video, with lots of interviews from leaders of the FT movement and some celebrities.  For a 10 min. video, it deals with lots of the issues, like food security and the role of international organizations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlT9atfuhOE

• Trade Aid: Alternative trade in a conventional world (2007, 20 min. in 2 parts)

Trade Aid does a good job in this video explaining what is Fair Trade and why it works in the developing world.  It discusses the problems with international trade regulations and gives the history of their organization.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNodTqHw9Eo

Please visit this website for further information about World Fair Trade Day 2013 : http://www.ftrn.org/wftd/

 

 

 

 

 

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The Unconquered tells the extraordinary tale    of a journey into the deepest recesses of the Amazon to track one of the planet’s last uncontacted indigenous tribes. In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, the author follows a 34-man team into the Amazon’s uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest’s secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with the mysterious flecheiros– or “People of the Arrow” – a seldom-glimpsed tribe of deft archers known to defend their lands with showers of deadly arrows before melting back into the forest shadows.

Amazon Watch is proud to support the launch of The Unconquered, a book that compellingly illustrates the crucial but increasingly precarious role indigenous peoples play in the survival of the world’s largest rainforest. The protection of uncontacted tribes – and of the globe’s most remote regions in which they live – is of fundamental importance to the rest of us. As go uncontacted indigenous peoples, so goes the Amazon; and that has global implications for the future of humanity.

April 13th, 2011

Some of the most famous novels and literary moments of all time were written and inspired by cafes in Europe. From the American ex-pat writers in Paris to Henrik Ibsen’s continental travels, cafes were a place to work while socializing, building stories, and of course, eating and drinking. If you’ve turned to coffee shops and restaurants to study instead of your room or the library, you’ll appreciate the literary significance of these 15 famous cafes.

1. La Rotonde: One of the most famous Parisian cafes during the great American literary ex-pat era is Cafe La Rotonde, which was actually written about in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, although Hemingway’s Jake Barnes seems to lament its overwhelming popularity: “No matter what cafe in Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to from the right bank of the river, they always take you to the Rotonde,” Hemingway wrote. Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and T.S. Eliot were also patrons there.
2. Le Dome Cafe: The very next line in Hemingway’s quote above is, “Ten years from now it will probably be the Dome.” Le Dome Cafe in Montparnasse in Paris was actually the first major cafe in that area to attract ex-pats and intellectuals. La Rotonde, Le Select and La Coupole were its competitors, but the Dome is now a more established seafood restaurant, no longer catering to up-and-coming artists and writers.
3. The Literary Cafe: St. Petersburg’s Literary Cafe supposedly entertained many top Russian writers, including Chernyshevsky and Dostoevsky, and is said to be the last cafe that poet Alexander Pushkin visited before dying in a duel.
4. Les Deux Magots: Now a popular tourist spot, Les Deux Magots is known as Hemingway’s favorite spot in Paris. But the St. Germain-des-Pres cafe also served many other legendary writers and artists, including Rimbaud, Simone de Beauvoir, André Gide, Jean Giraudoux, Jean Paul Sartre, and even Picasso. It’s one of the oldest cafes in Paris, and pays tribute to its old but polished heritage in its current design and character (though is most likely more expensive than it was in Hemingway’s day).
5. Cafe Braunerhof: Like Paris, Vienna is a city dotted with cafes, many of which were home to famous writers, artists and intellectuals. The Cafe Braunerhof located near the Habsburg city palace is said to be lauded writer Thomas Bernhard’s favorite spot, and where we worked on some of the most important works in the German-speaking world after WWII.
6. Cafe de Flore: Now a popular hang-out among the fashion set and other glamorous types, Cafe de Flore — principal rival to Les Deux Magots — was another office for Hemingway and his contemporaries. In 1994, Cafe de Flore began handing out its own annual literary prize — the Prix de Flore — to promising young authors of French-language literature. Besides a cash prize, the winner gets to drink a glass of the white wine Pouilly-Fume at the cafe every day for a year.
7. Dingo Bar: Now the restaurant Auberge de Venise, the Dingo Bar was another Montparnasse staple that opened in 1923 and catered to English and American ex-pats in Paris, like writer Djuna Barnes and publishing house owner Nancy Cunard. It’s also the spot where Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald met for the first time.
8. Cafe Montmartre: This cafe is actually located in Prague and was sometimes called by its nickname, Montik, or The Monty. Some of the most important writers from Germany and Czechoslovakia — like Franz Kafka, Eduard Bass and Max Brod — all came here.
9. Pedrocchi Cafe: Padua’s Pedrocchi Cafe is one of the biggest cafes in the world and was known as a favorite hang-out for Lord Byron and French writer Stendhal.
10. Harry’s New York Bar: Actually located in Paris, Harry’s New York Bar was named for its early manager, a Scotsman. It opened in 1911, and Harry was supposedly responsible for making it a legitimate ex-pat cafe during the next decade, attracting Sinclair Lewis, Humphrey Bogart, Hemingway, and others. Side tip: Harry’s New York Bar is also where the Bloody Mary was first concocted.
11. Antico Caffe Greco: Situated near the Spanish Steps in a very posh area of Rome, the Antico Caffe Greco — founded in 1760 — is also the city’s most famous. Over the past centuries, writers like Lord Byron, John Keats, Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen became patrons.
12. La Coupole: La Coupole is another historical Montparnasse cafe, which opened in 1927, soon after Le Select, and aimed to compete against Le Dome for the expat intellectual clientele. The massive cafe could seat 600 people, including famous guests like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre. La Coupole is now an official historic monument.
13. La Closerie des Lilas: Also situated in Paris’ Montparnasse is La Closerie, which opened in 1847 and attracted everyone from Henry James to Leon Trotsky to Gertrude Stein and Hemingway, who references nearby statues and descriptions in The Sun Also Rises.
14. Caffe Giubbe Rosse: One of Florence’s most famous cafes is Caffe Giubbe Rosse, named for Garibaldi’s Red Shirts, and also inspiration for the waiters’ uniforms. Celebrated for its role in producing the Futurist movement, Caffe Giubbe Rosse was also a favored spot for many notable Italian poets.
15. Grand Cafe: The Grand Hotel in Oslo is home to the Grand Cafe, a famous restaurant and meet-up. It’s where the Nobel Peace Prize banquet is held each year, and is said to be the daily lunch spot of Henrik Ibsen. Roald Dahl also stayed at the hotel during his youth.

reprinted with permission from www.onlinecollege.org

 

From Publishers Weekly

In a series of vignettes that span four centuries and are linked by their focus on chocolate, immortal protagonist Diego de Godoy presides over the discovery and refinement of the divine confection–but his concomitant reflections on life and love, too often trite, leave the reader hungering for more satisfying fare. In 1518, Diego, a young Spaniard anxious to prove his devotion to the lady Isabella, joins a ship of conquistadors bound for the Americas under the leadership of Cort‚s. His devotion to Isabella wanes, however, when, as a guest of Montezuma in Mexico, he meets the lovely Ignacia and tastes the smooth, bittersweet drink she serves him–cacahuatl, or chocolate. Diego and Ignacia spend an idyllic week together before his fellow Spaniards turn on Montezuma and raze his land. The lovers are forced to part, but not before Ignacia serves Diego a magical drink that makes him immortal and able to travel though time. In the centuries that follow, Diego charms Spanish nobility with his mole sauce, prepares chocolate creams with the Marquis de Sade in the Bastille, invents the Sacher torte, undergoes analysis with Sigmund Freud in Vienna and helps Hershey invent the Kiss–though he longs all the while for his Ignacia and resents the curse of his protracted existence. While Runcie, a BBC filmmaker, offers a clever conceit and meticulous, enticing descriptions of chocolate-making, Diego’s philosophizing falls short by comparison, and the plot relies to heavily upon contrivance and coincidence. Still, those willing to suspend disbelief and simply go along for the ride will be beguiled by Diego’s fanciful, sensual journey. Author tour.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In this winning blend of fiction and fact, a long-lived Spaniard serves as narrator and guide through the Old World discovery and development of one of life’s consuming passions. In 1518, young Diego de Godoy sets sail for the New World to find a rare treasure to win the heart and hand of Isabella. Joining Cortes, Diego journeys to Mexico, where he guards Montezuma; finds his true-love, Ignacia; and through her discovers the delight of the drink of the cacao bean. War parts the lovers, but Ignacia’s special chocolate elixir sustains them through the centuries, as Diego’s life centers on chocolate: he prepares confections with the Marquis de Sade in the Bastille, helps create the Sacher torte in Vienna (where Sigmund Freud treats him with cocaine and therapy), has a hand in shaping and naming the Hersey Kiss, and discusses life, love, and chocolate mousse with Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein. And he learns that even virtual immortality and chocolate do not bring happiness if love is lacking. A delicious literary debut. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

National Press Release from Fair Trade Resource Network website. 

IS THERE A SWEATSHOP IN YOUR HOME? HUNDREDS OF EVENTS PLANNED NATIONWIDE TO ENCOURAGE AMERICANS TO “FAIR TRADE YOUR HOME” Events to Provide Simple But Effective Tips For Creating a Fair Trade Home; Common Household Sweatshop Items That Can be Fairly Traded are Clothing, Home Goods and Chocolate. WASHINGTON, D.C.//April 29, 2010//Is there a sweatshop in your home?  For millions of Americans, the answer is an unwitting yes.  Americans across the country can find out how to replace goods made in sweatshops with Fair Trade products at hundreds of events taking place across the U.S. over the course of the next two weeks to mark World Fair Trade Day on May 8^th  (http://www.fairtraderesource.org/wftd-10/). They can also win great Fair Trade prizes by submitting pictures of fairly traded goods in their homes (http://www.fairtraderesource.org/wftd-10/fair-trade-my-home-contests/). Most Americans would be appalled to learn of the extent to which the everyday items that they use in their homes are produced in sweatshops or even by slave labor.  Widely used household items that fall into this category are all forms of clothing – from t-shirts to dress clothes to jewelry, home goods – including furniture and decorative items, and foods – including chocolate, coffee, sugar and spices.  World Fair Trade Day organizers are calling on Americans to get those sweatshop items out of their home and to instead “Fair Trade your home” to support farmers and artisans worldwide. World Fair Trade Day national campaign coordinator, and Executive Director, Fair Trade Resource Network Jeff Goldman, said:  “There are lots of reasons to celebrate Fair Trade as we bring dignity and justice to millions of vulnerable farmers and artisans around the world. By committing to use Fair Trade goods at home, we can enjoy high quality and take action to improve our world. The Fair Trade system helps producers and suppliers earn a living wage and take steps to protect the environment.  It also serves to empower individuals and communities, support women’s and children’s rights, promote dignity and respect, and connect developing nations with developed nations and markets. World Fair Trade Day is the largest Fair Trade event in North America, with over 65,000 people having participated in 2009.   In the U.S., small businesses, high schools, universities, churches, groups and individuals will be raising awareness about the benefits of buying Fair Trade products.  The theme of this year’s events is “Fair Trade My Home”.  Events across the country include: scavenger hunts, coffee tastings, dinner parties, arts and crafts festivals, and so much more.

Major co-sponsors of World Fair Trade Day include nonprofit and faith-based organizations, such as Green America, Catholic Relief Services, Fair Trade Towns and Fair for Life, as well as retail companies, such as Ben and Jerry’s, Wholesome Sweeteners, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, and Anti-Body.

5 TIPS TO “FAIR TRADE YOUR  HOME” Some of the best ways to get rid of sweatshop items in your home and to go Fair Trade are as follows: ·         Purchase Fair Trade Coffee, Tea, Sugar, and Cocoa:  When conventionally purchased, these popular food items are often grown in “sweatshops in the fields.”  Buying them Fair Trade Certified™ means that farmers are being paid a fair wage and communities are being supported.·         Purchase Fair Trade clothes – from t-shirts, to shoes to dresses, there is beautiful Fair Trade clothing from all over the world made by artisans who are paid a living wage.·         Buy Fair Trade Home goods – plates, tablecloths, and even furniture can be purchased Fair Trade.·         Buy Fair Trade handicrafts – from vases to sculptures to rugs – Fair Trade artisans produce beautiful crafts. And, when you purchase them from Fair Trade organizations, you know that no child labor or sweatshops were involved. ·         Gift Fair Trade – You can purchase Fair Trade toys for kids, sculptures for adults, and chocolate for everyone on your list.  When you gift Fair Trade, you are giving a high quality product and introducing someone to the value of purchasing Fair Trade every day. About World Fair Trade Day On and around May 8th, people in 80 countries worldwide will hold events to mark World Fair Trade Day in order to highlight the importance and benefits of Fair Trade. Across North America, participants are entering “Fair Trade My Home” contests. Both individuals, as well as organizations, will win Fair Trade prizes for bringing Fair Trade, or deepening Fair Trade, in their homes. Fair Trade supporters will host hundreds of events to encourage the public to take home many Fair Trade items, and enter the contests. Events such as festivals, fashion shows, speeches, food and drink tastings, film showings, sports games, neighborhood crawls, and concerts are being planned to help celebrate the day from May 1-15. CONTACT:   Leslie Anderson, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com.  

The True History of Chocolate, 2nd Edition

by Sophie D. Coe (Author), Michael D. Coe (Author)

(Photo from amazon.com site)

Here’s what a couple of reviews say.  You can read more on Amazon site.

Amazon.com Review
The Coes, both anthropologists with a culinary bent, delve deeply into the history of their mouth-watering subject. The material on ancient cultures is particularly fascinating–did you know that the Maya used unsweetened liquid chocolate as currency? And in a chapter called “Chocolate for the Masses,” they detail the modernization of chocolate manufacture, which has allowed more than 25 million Hershey’s Kisses to roll off the conveyor belt each day.

Impressively researched, March 15, 2009This is not the easiest of reads because the style is a little dry and academic. However, this is a serious book and an enormous amount of research has gone into it. Be warned that the first third of the book is set in pre-conquest Latin America and, unless you are a student of the period, it can be quite hard going handling the geography, history and difficult names all at one time! That aside, this is a book for readers that have a serious interest in the roots of cacao and chocolate. Such readers will be well rewarded by this book. In addition, if you are interested in more information about cacao itself, then also read Allen Young’s The Chocolate Tree – a Natural History of Chocolate. It’s more difficult to read than this one, but no less important.

The Chocolate Tree: A Natural History of Cacao

by ALLEN M. YOUNG (Author)

(photo from amazon.com)

Here’s what they have to say about this book:

The Chocolate Tree chronicles the natural and cultural history of Theobroma cacao and explores its ecological niche. Tracing cacao’s journey out of the rain forest, into pre-Columbian gardens, and then onto plantations adjacent to rain forests, Young describes the production of this essential crop, the environmental price of Europeanized cultivation, and ways that current reclamation efforts for New World rain forests can improve the natural ecology of the cacao tree. Amid encounters with sloths, toucans, butterflies, giant tarantula hawk wasps, and other creatures found in cacao groves, Young identifies a tiny fly that provides a vital link between the chocolate tree and its original rain forest habitat. This discovery leads him to conclude that cacao trees in cultivation today may have lost their original insect pollinators due to the plant’s long history of agricultural manipulation.In addition to basic natural history of the cacao tree and the relationship between cacao production systems and the preservation of the rain forest, Young also presents a history of the use of cacao, from the archaeological evidence of Mesoamerica to contemporary evidence of the relationship between chocolate consumption and mental and physical health.A rich concoction of cultural and natural history, archaeological evidence, botanical research, environmental activism, and lush descriptions of a contemporary adventurer’s encounters with tropical wonders, The Chocolate Tree offers an appreciation of the plant and the environment that provide us with this Mayan “food of the gods.”

   Books Across the Water is a program created by Nevada Union High School junior, Rosy Warren.  In the summer of 2008, she and her family traveled to a village in South Africa with Global Buddies.  Read the story of the trip to South Africa and get involved if you like.  You can donate books for the library Rosy is helping to create for her buddies in South Africa.