Chocolate: The Exhibition

Beginning Jan. 29, the Museum of Science is giving visitors something they can sink their teeth into. Its latest temporary exhibit investigates an ancient Aztec currency, intercontinental slave trade and a modern $90 billion business as it traces the harvesting, transit, marketing and consumption of Forrest Gump’s favorite boxed good and the stuff of dentists’ nightmares. Chocolate: The Exhibition spans 5,000 square feet and 200 objects, allowing visitors to stroll through a rainforest with a life-size cacao tree replica, learn about a chili-spiked, frothy drink invented by the Mayans, relive the moment when the bitter morsel met its sugary match in 16th-century Spain and peek at today’s Ghanaian and Mexican farmers and their equatorial plantations. Perch on a bonbon (pictured above) to get a taste yourself—Chocolate is on display in the museum’s Blue Wing through May 7.