Books and Chocolate

As the summer holidays come ever closer, one fun and important task will be selecting...

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book clubs and chocolate

As the summer holidays come ever closer, one fun and important task will be selecting...

Print / PDF

As the summer holidays come ever closer, one fun and important task will be selecting books to take with us on our travels.

So for anyone with a love of chocolate; or indeed anyone with a passion for everything from the science of flavour, history, environmentalism, or health & nutrition; we’ve started to assemble a list of great books featuring chocolate. We’d love your suggestions to fill out these lists and even add new categories; here’s what we have so far:

Novels: Everything from Willy Wonka to Agatha Christie; we’ve a range of great stories where chocolate takes centre stage. See HERE for more.
Science: Chocolate’s amazing versatility provides a fantastic lens to explore everything from the science of flavour (Anne Sophie Barwich’s ‘Smellosophy’ remains our ‘go to’) to the intricacies of chocolate crafting. Again see HERE for more.
History and Environmentalism: There are a wealth of great books here from the seminal work by Sophie and Michael Coe, and again we strongly recommend Dr Kristy Leissle’s ‘Cocoa’ as a fantastic introduction. See HERE for more.
Recipes and Craft Chocolate: We’ve built this list with a focus on craft chocolate makers’ contributions as so many of them (Casa Cacao, Pump Street, Dandelion, etc.) have written personal stories combined with recipes and histories of cocoa. See HERE for more.

Please look through our ‘first pass’ lists, and use this form to suggest other books, and even new categories, that you would like to recommend and add to the list.

Book Clubs and Chocolate

We’re also delighted to be working with Kathryn Laverack and Cat Black on the wonderful idea of marrying book clubs and craft chocolate. Bottom line; different craft chocolate bars, makers and growers can provide a great means to illustrate and explore themes from any book. Please do look through some suggested pairings, with accompanying videos.

And now that in-person book clubs are back, why not bring along a few craft chocolate bars to thank the host and share with other guests?

Chocolate DJs and Book & Bar Sets

During lockdown we asked a bunch of craft chocolate enthusiasts from other industries like Tim Spector, Julian Baggini, James Hoffman, etc. to online “Desert Island Chocolate” tasting sessions, where we told their lives through chocolate (and we do plan to continue these in the autumn, both in person and virtually). We also asked these enthusiasts to pair some of their favourite bars with books they’d recently published. To quote a Japanese proverb; these pairings are like “hitting two birds with one stone”. You receive a great book and great chocolates. And they make great presents.

One final point; we will be exploring chocolate and… movies, podcasts, music, and more, soon! Again, your recommendations are most welcome (you can add them to our form too).

Thanks as ever for your support.

Spencer

P.S. Nick and I have been to Amsterdam for Chocoa this last week, so expect a full report next week!