QUOTE : Diego and I spent the next few hours extracting the podlike nuts of the chocolate tree, <i>Theobroma cacao</i>. He climbed the tree, which was about fifteen feet high and quite slender, and shook it until the ripe nuts fell to the ground. It was one of the strangest-looking trees I'd ever laid eyes on- tall and skinny, with huge multicolored pods hanging down off its main branches. It looked like a long brown stick with orange, yellow, red, green, pink, and purple footballs glued onto it. It was difficult for me to connect this tree and its weird pods to Nestlé Crunch bars and double-fudge ice cream on a hot summer day.