The Bitter History of Chocolate

Throughline

NPR

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What's better than holiday hot chocolate? If just thinking about it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, well – that’s by design. Chocolate's big history sweeps across the globe, and today we’re going on that journey: from the pre–Columbus Americas, to an early 20th century reporter’s hunch about what cocoa production really takes, to a 21st century medical student’s story about his childhood on a farm that produces those holiday treats.

Guests:

Carla Martin, lecturer in African and African American Studies at Harvard University and President of the Board of the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research

Catherine Higgs, professor of history at the University of British Columbia in Canada

Shadrack Frimpong, founder of Cocoa360

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Transcript

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1:40.0	A sip of Swiss Miss hot cocoa tastes so good and rich it makes me.
1:45.0	Ruby, what are we about to do?
1:47.0	About to make some hot chocolate, fan.
1:56.0	It's full of real Wisconsin milk and rich imported cocoa.
	...

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