Winner of the Society for Economic Botany's Mary W. Klinger Book Award

"A triumph of four-field anthropology. Botany, archaeology, linguistics, ethnography, and a small bit of physical anthropology are seamlessly united. . . . Without integration of the fields, few or none of the interesting conclusions in this work could have been reached."--American Anthropologist

"Contains a watershed of interesting and exciting information. . . . For those with a serious interest in food history and foodways, it is an invaluable source of up-to-date information on one of the most beloved and revered foodstuffs in the Americas."--Austin Chronicle

"A unique, extremely useful collection on chocolate use in Mesoamerica that sets a standard to follow in the expanding field of cultural food studies."--Choice

"McNeil has here assembled an impressive stable of scholars to examine all aspects of cacao development and use in Mesoamerica from its discovery to its use by the modern Maya."--American Archaeology

"In this collection of 21 papers, the authors discuss the linguistic, chemical, agricultural, medicinal, economic and social aspects of the cacao plant, often in exhaustive detail."--Cambridge Archaeological Journal

"I highly recommend the book for specialists as well as for the general public interested in knowing more about cacao; the reading is not complicated and is presented from an anthropological perspective."--Journal of Ethnopharmacology

A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane and Arlen Chase.