"Obsessions: Wild Chocolate" Podcast: Chocolate To Die For

 The podcast begins with the host /narrator explaining that he is in the co-pilot seat of a single engine Cessna plane, white knuckling it because the pilot is struggling to find a place to land in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest.

After a harrowing landing, the sounds of the rainforest assault the listener, from insect calls to wild parrots.

The Amazon was once the exclusive growing spot for wild cacao, which produces the most exquisite chocolate in the world.

This is how the iHeart podcast describes itself: “Forget Willy Wonka and those heart-shaped Valentine’s boxes. OBSESSIONS: Wild Chocolate is a totally different beast. Join host Rowan Jacobsen as he elbows his way through the rain forest, crash lands into cocaine flyaways, and avoids a few too many anacondas, tagging along with modern-day Lara Crofts as they try to get their hands on some of the world’s most ancient– and expensive– cacao.”

Rowen Jacobsen is the author of eight books, with his most recent being Truffle Hound. In the podcast, Jacobsen explains his food writer credo: He doesn’t do food recipes or cookbooks. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Food & Wine, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Audubon, and elsewhere. His work is regularly anthologized in The Best American Science & Nature Writing and Best Food Writing collections. He has been an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow, writing about endangered diversity on the borderlands between India, Myanmar, and China; a McGraw Center for Business Journalism Fellow, writing about the disruptive potential of plant-based proteins; and a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, focusing on the environmental and evolutionary impact of synthetic biology. He has appeared on CBS, NBC, and NPR.

Obsessions: Wild Chocolate is more like a National Geographic documentary mixed with a hint of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. 

Jacobsen may use a ladle or chopping knife instead of a whip, but he’s a narrator that has parachuted himself into the middle of a secluded rainforest with a dangerous paramilitary group, while battling centuries of colonialism that have raped the environment, and enduring a perilous journey down the river.

Jacobsen called the booty “God-level chocolate” and the podcast even offers listeners this chocolate via a sponsor. Clever!

Jacobsen explains that local chocolate has been around since the Mayans, and the cacao beans even have a religious component.

Jacobsen even delves into history when discussing how Christopher Columbus in 1502 discovered the value of cacao beans. 

The mood of this podcast is not studio polished, but environmental immersion. The podcast music thumps with native drums and local instruments that explodes in the ear with verisimilitude. 

Check out Obsessions: Wild Chocolate. While commuting to work, you’ll be able to float down the Amazon River with underwater tree trunks that can impale your boat and alligators sizing up the narrator and his motley group as dinner.