Casa Frederick Catherwood

It is with delight that we report that the delectable chocolates created by Mathieu Brees are now available anywhere in the United States of America from Amazon.com!

Mathieu Brees and Stephanie Brees, the dazzling husband-and-wife team behind Ki’ Xocolatl, were invited by the Mexican Government to participate in the Fancy Food Show in New York this past summer.  That gathering of food enthusiasts was a success, and after several months of hard work, Amazon.com’s Food & Gourmet Division will sell their chocolate bars throughout the United States.

Bravo to Mathieu and Stephanie, and Bravo to Amazon.com for recognizing what are among the most delicious chocolates in the world!

Below are descriptions of the chocolates, and a link that will take you directly to Amazon.com so you can place your order for Ki’ Xocolatl chocolates.

Dark chocolate, 72% cacao, organic Mexican Criollo chocolate.  Ki' Xocolatl, or "rich delicious chocolate," in the Maya and Nahuatl (Aztec) languages, is a crafted product made of organic cocoa beans native to the tropical rain forests of Mexico.  The cocoa beans are carefully selected from our own groves deep in the heart of the Yucatan peninsula and blended by Beligan Master Chocolatier Mathieu Brees.  Ki' Xocolatl is crafted as a bean-to-bar delicacy.  Organic.  Criollo. Gluten-Free.  No Dairy. 

To celebrate the success of Mathieu and Stephanie, Casa Catherwood has compiled a selection of the must-read books for anyone who is mad about chocolates. 

And the listing below is the more sweet, since by ordering through Amazon.com, many of these books offer a significant discount over the suggested retail prices.  Enjoy the chocolates, enjoy the savings and enjoy the reading!

The True History of Chocolate, by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Doe

“A beautifully written...and illustrated history of the Food of the Gods, from Olmecs to present-day developments."—Chocolatier

This delightful and best-selling tale of one of the world's favorite foods draws upon botany, archaeology, and culinary history to present a complete and accurate history of chocolate.

The story begins some 3,000 years ago in the jungles of Mexico and Central America with the chocolate tree, Theobroma Cacao, and the complex processes necessary to transform its bitter seeds into what is now known as chocolate. This was centuries before chocolate was consumed in generally unsweetened liquid form and used as currency by the Maya, and the Aztecs after them. The Spanish conquest of Central America introduced chocolate to Europe, where it first became the drink of kings and aristocrats and then was popularized in coffeehouses. Industrialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made chocolate a food for the masses, and now, in our own time, it has become once again a luxury item.

The second edition draws on recent research and genetic analysis to update the information on the origins of the chocolate tree and early use by the Maya and others, and there is a new section on the medical and nutritional benefits of chocolate. 100 illustrations, 15 in color.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

The Chocolate Tree: A Natural History of Cacao, Revised and Expanded Edition by Allen M. Young

Young provides an overview of the fascinating natural and human history of one of the world's most intriguing commodities: chocolate. Cultivated for over 1,000 years in Latin America and the starting point for millions of tons of chocolate annually consumed worldwide, cacao beans have been used for beverages, as currency, and for regional trade. After the Spanish brought the delectable secret of the cacao tree back to Europe in the late 16th century, its seeds created and fed an insatiable worldwide appetite for chocolate.

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.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

Making Artisan Chocolates by Andrew Garrison Shotts

Forget milk chocolate molded into childish candy bars. Today's chocolate candies use chocolates with high cocoa content and less sugar then previously available and are molded into highly decorated pieces of art. Once only accessible to pastry chefs and candy makers, home cooks can now purchase high-end domestic and imported chocolates in their local specialty stores. The recent availability of bittersweet chocolates coupled with our access to a global food market and unique ingredients has created an increased interest in artisanal chocolates. Drew Shotts has been at the forefront of this renaissance because of his daring use of unique flavor combinations not typically associated with chocolates, such as chili peppers, maple syrup, and spiced chai tea. Making Artisan Chocolates shows readers how to recreate Drew's unexpected flavors at home through the use of herbs, flowers, chilies, spices, vegetables, fruits, dairies and liquors.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

The Science of Chocolate by Stephen T. Beckett

The second edition of this international best seller has been fully revised and updated describing the complete chocolate making process, from the growing of the beans to the sale in the shops. The reader will discover how confectionery is made and how basic science plays a vital role. There is discussion of the monitoring and controlling of the production process, and the importance of the packaging. A series of experiments, which can be adapted to suit students, are included to demonstrate the physical, chemical or mathematical principles involved. This book is ideal for those studying food sciences, working in the confectionery industry or just with a general interest in chocolate!

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

Chocolate: Pathway to the Gods by Meredith L. Dreiss and Sharon Edgar Greenhill

Chocolate: Pathway to the Gods takes readers on a journey through 3,000 years of the history of chocolate. It is a trip filled with surprises. And it is a beautifully illustrated tour, featuring 132 vibrant color photographs and a captivating sixty-minute DVD documentary. Along the way, readers learn about the mystical allure of chocolate for the peoples of Mesoamerica, who were the first to make it and who still incorporate it into their lives and ceremonies today. Although it didn’t receive its Western scientific name, Theobroma cacao—“food of the gods”—until the eighteenth century, the cacao tree has been at the center of Mesoamerican mythology for thousands of years. Not only did this “chocolate tree” produce the actual seeds from which chocolate was extracted but it was also symbolically endowed with cosmic powers that enabled a dialogue between humans and their gods. From the pre-Columbian images included in this sumptuous book, we are able to see for ourselves the importance of chocolate to the Maya, Aztecs, Olmecs, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs who grew, produced, traded, and fought over the prized substance. Through archaeological and other ethnohistoric research, the authors of this fascinating book document the significance of chocolate—to gods, kings, and everyday people—over several millennia. The illustrations allow us to envision the many ancient uses of this magical elixir: in divination ceremonies, in human sacrifices, and even in ball games. And as mythological connections between cacao trees, primordial rainforests, and biodiversity are unveiled, our own quest for ecological balance is reignited. In demonstrating the extraordinary value of chocolate in Mesoamerica, the authors provide new reasons—if any are needed—to celebrate this wondrous concoction.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

Chocolate Therapy: Indulgent Recipes to Lift Your Spirits by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley

Got problems? Get chocolate! Chocolate Therapy is a chocolate cookbook like no other, combining 100 irresistible recipes with tips on how chocolate works to lift your spirits and fight depression, fun chocolate trivia, quotes, and fascinating facts. You'l find yummy recipes with clever titles like Regression Cake and Freudian Fondue, as well as simply mouthwatering treats like Warm Chocolate Souffle Tart, Venus Cheesecake and Rich Tiramisu Squares. And, of course, there are the priceless quotes like Katharine Hepburn's "What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate," reminding chocolate-lovers everywhere that they are not alone.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars by Joel Glenn Brenner

Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey effortlessly hold center stage in this superb study of their competing candy companies. Although both men got rich on chocolate, Mars and Hershey are such markedly different characters that Brenner's book is a riot of dramatic contrasts. Mars is irascible, empire obsessed and insanely tightfisted (his three children never tasted a single M&M during their childhoods because he told them he couldn't spare any). Hershey was generous to a fault, a utopian dreamer who planned and built Hershey, Pa., as a home for his company and its workers. He founded an orphanage for disadvantaged children and, in 1918, almost 30 years before his death, donated his entire estate to the Hershey Trust for the benefit of the orphanage. To her credit, former Washington Post hand Brenner goes beyond these two titans and portrays the entire candy industry. Her prodigious research reveals how the personal style of each candy patriarch continues to influence the current structure and strategy of the company he led. By fully exploiting the many differences between the two companies (Mars is privately held and family-run; Hershey is a publicly held company administered by a management team responsible to the Hershey Trust), Brenner has produced a stellar work of corporate history.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World by Marcy Norton

Before Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492, no European had ever seen, much less tasted, tobacco or chocolate. Initially dismissed as dry leaves and an odd Indian drink, these two commodities came to conquer Europe on a scale unsurpassed by any other American resource or product. A fascinating story of contact, exploration, and exchange in the Atlantic world, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures traces the ways in which these two goods of the Americas both changed and were changed by Europe.

Focusing on the Spanish Empire, Marcy Norton investigates how tobacco and chocolate became material and symbolic links to the pre-Hispanic past for colonized Indians and colonizing Europeans alike. Botanical ambassadors of the American continent, they also profoundly affected Europe. Tobacco, once condemned as proof of Indian diabolism, became the constant companion of clergymen and the single largest source of state revenue in Spain. Before coffee or tea became popular in Europe, chocolate was the drink that energized the fatigued and uplifted the depressed. However, no one could quite forget the pagan past of tobacco and chocolate, despite their apparent Europeanization: physicians relied on Mesoamerican medical systems for their understanding of tobacco; theologians looked to Aztec precedent to decide whether chocolate drinking violated Lenten fasts.

The struggle of scientists, theologians, and aficionados alike to reconcile notions of European superiority with the fact of American influence shaped key modern developments ranging from natural history to secularization. Norton considers the material, social, and cultural interaction between Europe and the Americas with historical depth and insight that goes beyond the portrayal of Columbian exchange simply as a matter of exploitation, infection, and conquest.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.

Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage by Louis E. Grivetti and Howard-Yana Shaprio

International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) 2010 Award Finalists in the Culinary History category.

Chocolate. We all love it, but how much do we really know about it? In addition to pleasing palates since ancient times, chocolate has played an integral role in culture, society, religion, medicine, and economic development across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

In 1998, the Chocolate History Group was formed by the University of California, Davis, and Mars, Incorporated to document the fascinating story and history of chocolate. This book features fifty-seven essays representing research activities and contributions from more than 100 members of the group. These contributors draw from their backgrounds in such diverse fields as anthropology, archaeology, biochemistry, culinary arts, gender studies, engineering, history, linguistics, nutrition, and paleography. The result is an unparalleled, scholarly examination of chocolate, beginning with ancient pre-Columbian civilizations and ending with twenty-first-century reports.

Here is a sampling of some of the fascinating topics explored inside the book:

• Ancient gods and Christian celebrations: chocolate and religion
• Chocolate and the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1764
• Chocolate pots: reflections of cultures, values, and times
• Pirates, prizes, and profits: cocoa and early American east coast trade
• Blood, conflict, and faith: chocolate in the southeast and southwest borderlands of North America
• Chocolate in France: evolution of a luxury product
• Development of concept maps and the chocolate research portal

Not only does this book offer careful documentation, it also features new and previously unpublished information and interpretations of chocolate history. Moreover, it offers a wealth of unusual and interesting facts and folklore about one of the world's favorite foods.

To order this book through Amazon.com, please click on the image of the book.