“The transformation of the fresh cacao bean into a finished chocolate is an intriguing collaboration between the tremendous potential of the natural world and human ingenuity at finding nourishment and pleasure in the most unpromising materials,” (Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking.) Thanks, in part, to indigenous tribes sharing their precious cacao drinks with Italians like explorer Milanese Benzoni and Englishman Henry Stubbe (who wrote a treatise on chocolate titled The Indian Nectar,) inventions like Van Houton’s screw press and inventors such as Henri Nestlé and Rudolphe Lindt, we get to savor and enjoy the sweet confection that we all know and love today as chocolate. Faith in humanity, its ingenuity and our anthropological progress RESTORED. Thank you, chocolate, I think we all needed that!