These various properties chocolate owes to nothing but an eloesaccharum.  Few substances contain in the same volume more nutrition.  It becomes almost entirely animalised.

During the war, cocoa was rare and very dear.  Substitutes were sought for, but all efforts were vain.  One of the blessings of peace was that it rid us of all those humbugs one was forced to taste, but which were no more chocolate than chicory is mocha.

Some persons complain that they cannot digest chocolate.  Others say that it does not nourish them, and that it passes away too quickly.

The probability is that the first have only to blame themselves, and that the chocolate they use is of bad quality.  Good and well made chocolate can be digested even by the weakest stomach.

The others have an easy remedy, and they need only strengthen their stomachs by a pate, a cotelette, or a jerked kidney.  Then let them take a bowl of sokomusko, and thank God for such a powerful stomach.

Here I have an opportunity to give two examples, the correctness of which may be relied on.

After a good breakfast one may drink a full bowl of chocolate, and digestion in three hours will be perfect, so that one may dine at any hour that is pleasant. ...  In zeal for the advancement of the science, I tried this experiment on many ladies who assured me they would die.  They did not, though, and lived to glorify the professor.

Those who use chocolate, ordinarily enjoy the most perfect health, and are the least subject to the multitude of ailments which destroy life; their embonpoint is stationary.  These two examples any one can verify in society by a scrutiny of those the regimen of whom is known.

This is the true place to speak of the properties of chocolate, which I have verified by many examples and experiments, which I am delighted to exhibit to my readers. (See varieties at the end of the volume.)

Now, then, let any man who has indulged too much in the cup of volupte; let every man who has passed in toil too much of the time when he should have slept; let every man of mind, who finds his faculties temporarily decay; every man who finds the air humid and the atmosphere painful to breathe; let every man who has a fixed idea which would deprive him of the liberty of thought; let them each take a demi litre of chocolate ambre, (sixty grains of amber to the kilogramme), and they will see wonders.

In my way of distinguishing things, I have called this chocolate des affliges; because in all the conditions I have referred to, there is something very like affliction.

Very good chocolate is made in Spain; one is indisposed to send thither for it, for all manufacturers are not equally skillful, and when it comes it has to be used as it is.

Italian chocolates do not suit the French, for the cocoa is burned too much.  This makes the chocolate bitter, and deprives it of its nourishment.  A portion of the bean has been reduced to carbon.