Why the 1930s were a golden age for chocolate (1996) | Hacker News Reader

Why the 1930s were a golden age for chocolate (1996)

theguardian.com

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"My passion for chocolate did not really begin until I was fourteen or fifteen years old..."

Bit of a background. Dahl going to school in the 30's got the chance to taste all these chocolates (Sweets/lollies) as a tester for Cadbury resulting in a sweet tooth. [0] These stories are told in "Boy" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

Interesting facts: Dahl got the cane for putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers while at Cathedral School, Llandaff. Credited with creating the word, ^Gremlin^. [1] Dahl collected the silver foil wrappers of chocolate he had for lunch, rolled them into a ball [2] that sat on his desk, the writing shed at Gypsy House. Sharpened pencils at the side, board across his knees and feet on his mothers old suitcase. [3]

Nowhere in the article is the a ^reason^ why Cadbury developed so many classics in this period. There seems to be a fair bit of innovation working out how to get Cadbury chocolates lighter, and no Thatcher didn't have a hand in this. [4]

Reference

[0] https://www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/archive/archive-highlig...

[1] You can hear Dahl talk about the mouse, the thrashing he got, gremlins and chocolates ~ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p040dzz0

[2] https://www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/archive/archive-highlig...

[3] https://www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/archive/search-the-data...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2013/apr/...

The article focuses on a golden age of candy bars more than a golden age of chocolate. Big difference IMO.

This being an article from a British newspaper, it wouldn't use the term "candy bars" - they're all considered "chocolate bars" in the UK

Yes in the UK 'candy' means what you would call 'hard candy' (although most people would probably use the term 'boiled sweet' instead), and what you would call 'candy' we call 'sweets'. A 'chocolate bar' is any sweet enrobed in chocolate.

Be careful with your definition...

A chocolate bar is generally something that is vaguely rectangular (longer than it is wide), has chocolate as it's outer layer, and would take multiple (often many) bites to eat.

If I take a sherbet pip and dip it in chocolate, it is not a chocolate bar good sir! :-)

Sure, we call them chocolate bars in Canada also. The point I meant to make was, whatever we prefer to call those popular/fun/iconic products in the article, they don't represent great chocolate. Neither then nor now.

'Chocolate' is short for 'chocolate bars'. The title isn't 'great chocolate', it's 'great chocolate [bars]'. To many people these are great chocolate bars, demonstrated by their longevity and continuing popularity today.

Am I the only one who came away with more appreciation of the "what", but none at all of the "why"?

i got confused at first too. its evidence that the 1930s was the golden age of chocolate, not an explanation of why the 1930s are the golden age of chocolate

Lots of "why X is Y" articles are really "why X is described as Y" rather than "what caused X to be Y".

The confusion is compounded by one of the first lines:

> this extract ... explains why the decade produced virtually all the classic bars we still love today

> But Forrest Mars had the secret, and the Mars bar was born. It swept the world, the first ever chewy bar. And very soon 600 million were being eaten every year in England alone. That is 10 per year, per person.

What was the secret?

Not sure about the Mars bar, but the Hershey secret is adding butyric acid to the chocolate [0]:

> The process is a company and trade secret, but experts speculate that the milk is partially lipolyzed, producing butyric acid, which stabilizes the milk from further fermentation.

Fun fact: butyric acid is also what makes vomit smell.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_bar

The very first time I tried Hersheys (Brit, travelling to the US as a teen), my immediate reaction was "this tastes like vomit". Worst chocolate I've ever tasted, I have no idea how it's so popular

There may be a slight difference in flavor, but Milka and Cadbury Dairy Milk are of a very similar garbage quality to Hershey's.

Good milk chocolate exists (Ritter Sport is fine), but those are just chocolate-flavored sugar confections.

You're just being snobby.

There's no right or wrong or absolutes like 'garbage' in food - it's creative and down to personal taste. If someone prefers Cadbury and the food is safe to eat then who cares how it meets someone's arbitrary idea of correctness?

Many foods that we now think about as delicacies were once cheaper variants of fine foods at the time.

There is a difference between subjective and objective measures. We can say something is "good" because we like it, or we can say something is "good" because it meets some objective criteria. The two do not have to be aligned. People can like something even if it doesn't meet some predefined criteria. People can dislike something even if it meets that criteria.

It is often said that those who measure on objective criteria are snobby. It is often said that those who measure on a subjective criteria are crass. People who take such extreme positions are blind to the other position, which is unfortunate.

But you can acknowledge that something with problems from an objective perspective is very popular. You can even admit to liking it yourself and there is no shame in that. One the flip side, even if you have entrenched personal preferences, you can educate yourself as to why the objective measures exist -- or at least admit that some people get value out of them even if you don't.

Putting someone down for enjoying something sucks -- no matter whether that is a subjective or objective thing.

It tasted that way because you're not used to it and used to other flavors.

I appreciate unsweetened lattes (sans flavor syrups) other people enjoy vanilla, sweetened matcha, etc. Neither one of us can say one flavor is objectively better than the other, we just prefer different things --many children detest greens when young but come to appreciate them later in their youth or as they get older.

Sweet milk chocolate is pretty awful though.

a lot of people prefer it, around 45% over all other chocolates

I'm American and as a kid I was never really that fond of chocolate. Then as an adult travelling to Europe for the first time I discovered Swiss, Dutch and German chocolate and absolutely adored it. Luckily its not that easily available where I live or I'd be more than a few pounds heavier;<).

Bring back the Polly Waffle!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Waffle

Also a good year legally for the start of the long fight to end the involvement of child/slave labour in the production of cocoa. See [the Tariff Act of 1930](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1307).

Unfortunately, this fight has yet to be won.

The Mars company historically were big on automation and vending machines, in the pre-computer era Mars were the big player in this business. I think that a lot of that expertise must have been gained on the factory production hardware before the other business came along, i.e. the vending machines and the global export opportunities for such hardware, able to do such things as reliably dispense a packet of crisps.

Once Mars and co mastered the art of automation then anything became possible. I think this was a different thing to 'mass production' as that had gone on for a long time before Ford in UK food manufacturing, e.g. biscuits in Reading.

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