A Beverage for the Masses: The Democratization of Cocoa in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction

To understand the history of cocoa and its consumption is to understand the politics of power and the economy of the privileged. Although the focus of this chapter will be power dynamics as re ected in nineteenth-century literary texts, I shall rst give a brief history of the paradoxical meanings associated with chocolate – starting as a magical brew for the gods, beverage of the oppressed and exotic libation for the oppressor.