The plate has always been a great fortifier. Soup to heal, stew to comfort, escape delivered in a good piece of chocolate.

But events both at home and internationally are conspiring to shake the confidence of eaters. Global famine, war and disaster are no longer so easy to keep from the table.

Let’s consider, for a moment, the chocolate Easter bunny.

The price of chocolate has been rising. Hershey’s recently said it had increased the cost of its products by almost 10 percent.

The cost of fuel is a culprit, but so are the politics of the Ivory Coast, which supplies more cocoa beans to the word than any other country. While Laurent Gbagbo tried to hold onto his presidency, his rival cut off export of the cocoa crop, and prices in the United States hit a 32-year high.