Vincent Gallo

I drive out to this quail farm, where I get a lot of these incredible quail eggs, which I eat all day long. And I eat a lot of superfoods like goji, cacao and chia seeds, things like that. And I like unpasteurised milk of the goat and the sheep. They send it once a week from Pennsylvania, from the Amish farms, and I get it in Los Angeles.

American Actor

Bill Buford

Bahia is the Amazon's geographical next-of-kin: the same climate, forest canopy, diverse floor. But there is no wild cacao; the tree was introduced, most likely by a Frenchman, Louis Frederick Warneaux, who, in 1746, sowed seeds near one of Bahia's large rivers.

American Author

Jacques Torres

You can easily compare chocolate to wine. What makes a good wine is usually a good terroir, a good grape, and the weather has something to do with it. Chocolate is the same, from where the cacao bean grows to what type of tree it grows on.

Algerian Chef

The cacao content is a wrapper's most important datum, and the acceptable benchmark is seventy per cent. The figure is a measure of 'cocoa mass.

Nazanin Boniadi

Belgian chocolate is my weakness. I like over 72 percent cacao, which shows you how much of a dark chocolate snob I am.

British Actress

If kept dry, a chocolate with a high cacao content, I've discovered, rarely spoils.

Cacao trees grow mainly in the tropical climates of the Americas and Africa.

Geographic Origin

Understanding 'cacao' includes its role in botany and the process from tree to chocolate.

Botanical Aspect

Cacao has a rich heritage, especially in ancient Mesoamerican cultures.

Cultural Significance

Cacao seeds undergo fermentation, drying, and roasting before becoming eatable chocolate.

Processing Stages

Raw cacao is touted for potential health benefits like antioxidants, unlike processed chocolate.

Health Associations

Cacao is versatile in cooking, used in sweet and sometimes savory dishes.

Culinary Versatility

 Caffeine occurs naturally in coffee beans, tea leaves, cacao beans and some tree nuts. People have been consuming it for centuries. But dailY consumption took off sporadically at different times in different places around the world.

Caffeine 101 PIPE National...

 of the native cacao tree. The earliest records tell us the beans were ground and mixed with cornmeal and chili peppers to create a drink - not a relaxing cup of hot cocoa, but a bitter, invigorating concoction frothing with foam.

The history of chocolate...

 cranky, annoying self is home. It's where world peace begins. Number chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food.