Ancestral Kitchen #13 - The Secret Life of Chocolate
Chocolate has a secret life.
One where, instead of being formed into industrial bars, women combine it by hand with local herbs to make drinks. One where it is a healer, not a creator of addiction. One where it’s revered - held so sacred that it’s used in ceremony and as currency, not bought for a few pennies, wrapper discarded. One where it’s bitter, potent and intense, not sweet and sickly. And one where nobody feels guilt when they imbibe it.
There’s no-one more qualified to open the door to this world than Marcos Patchett, author of the 700-page The Secret Life of Chocolate. This book, which covers everything you could possibly want to know about cacao - including how it was ancestrally used, it’s pharmacology and it’s mythology - will completely change your view of cacao.
“There’s a lifetime’s worth of research in this book.”
Come join us as we dive into a cacao-flavoured world!
The run-down:
1:52 About the book
7:20 Why Marcos wrote the book
12:19 The effect of imbibing extracted plant compounds v. the whole plant
15:10 How cacao was originally drunk and how chocolate is eaten in the West now
20:25 The book-writing high point
26:40 Alison, Andrea and Marcos talk about their relationships with chocolate
34:00 Chocolate and disordered eating
36:58 Cacao’s medicinal effects
44:00 How chocolate’s effects are mediated by the eater’s intention
59.40 The cultural side of cacao's history
1:07:25 Self-medicating with chocolate as part of disordered eating
1.10:25 Practical steps to start eating chocolate ancestrally/authentically
“It blew my mind to realise I’ve been blocking benefits of chocolate by feeling guilt” Alison
*Due to equipment failure, this episode does not have as good audio quality as normal. But it's totally listenable and wonderful content!*
If you want to buy your own copy of the book, Marcos is offering a 20% discount. Use the code CHOC20 on the publishers website:
For those in the US: https://bit.ly/3dVRX1d
For rest of world: https://www.aeonbooks.co.uk
“The modern research suggests quite strongly that cacao is protective against heart disease and stroke and type 2 diabetes.” Marcos
Resources mentioned:
Jonathan Ott - The Cacahuatl Eater
Susana Trilling - Seasons of my Heart
“Only eating the chocolate mindfully produced a positive increase in mood” Marcos
Where to find Marcos and his work:
Marcos’ book’s website: https://thesecretlifeofchocolate.com/
Marcos’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nocturnalherbalist/
Marcos’ herbalist website: http://nocturnalherbalist.co.uk
You Tube The Nocturnal Herbalist
Sourcing your own cacao:
“You learn so much doing it from scratch, and the quality is so much better” Alison
To source your own cacao as beans: Look for raw (i.e. not previously roasted) Criollo or Forastero beans.
Europe: Where Alison has sourced organic cacao beans:
http://macrolibrarsi.it and http://cacaopuro.com
She is currently working on European sourcing of a known single-origin bean, in home-chocolate-maker quantities. Stay connected with her if you’d like to know what she finds.
USA:
Organic arriba criollo cacao beans
To source ready-made roasted and ground cacao ‘paste’ search for cacao liquor or cacao paste.
Marcos suggested cacao amor (UK-based), you can get a 20% discount with the code: nocturnalherbalist20
Rebekah Shaman also sells this in the UK
Blocks of organic ground cacao paste (US)
Valrhona industrially-roasted ‘couverture’ (this is the ‘base’ chocolate that many fine chocolate-makers use to make more complicated bars and small chocolates)
Other resources:
All about metates and grinding stones
Snippet of someone grinding cacao in a metate (You can also watch Marcos doing this on the cacao preparation videos on his You Tube channel (linked above))
Mexgrocer (scroll down to read a description of Mexican chocolate drinks):
Video of preparing traditional drinking chocolate in Oaxaca, Mexico
"Dark chocolate has fuelled many things in my life" Marcos
We'd love to continue the conversation. Come find us on Instagram:
Andrea is at Farm and Hearth
Alison is at Ancestral Kitchen
The podcast is at Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
Original Music, Episode Mixing and Post-Production by Robert Michael Kay
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