Victorian Era Chocolate
 

What was it like? I mean for eating, not for drinking. Particularly in 1895 if possible. Did it come in bars? If so, were there squares on the bars? If not, and they came in a box, did they have fillings, or was it more about the shapes?

Victorian Era Chocolate
 

By the year 1895, France imported approximately 15000 tonnes of cocoa,
while UK 14000 and USA 13000 (Clarence-Smith, 2000:40). First at all,
there were different uses of chocolate. The recreational use of
chocolate was different of that medicinal. But, if you are interested
in the chocolate as an enjoyable food, we have the powder cocoa (e.g.
Cadbury), although it was also thought to be preventive of diseases;
the chocolate as that made by Lindt's family or that by Milton Snavely
Hershey, and finally the chocolate used by pastry-makers or in the
bakery.

The chocolate bar was introduced almost 50 years before, when in 1847
Joseph Fry "created" the candy bar, so the people started to eat
chocolate and not only drinking it. It was a real "boom" of
consumption.

Here you have a description of a chocolate in 1850:

John Tarbell published his book The Sources of Health and the
Prevention of Disease in 1850 and wrote:
The [chocolate] kernels of the nut, after being heated upon an iron
plate, and afterwards ground, form with the addition of water, a
paste, which is sweetened, flavored, dried in moulds and sold in shops
as chocolate.
Cited by:
Pucciarelli, D. L., & Grivetti, L. E. (2010) The medicinal use of
chocolate in early North America. Mol. Nutr. Food Res., 52, 1215 €“
1227.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/j...71517/abstract

However seems that the taste was not so good. It was later that the
Swiss machinery brought us in 1879 those fabolous milk chocolates (at
that time were Nestlé and Lindt).
In summary: "late in the nineteenth century, chocolate took on the
�nished forms, either as solid bar or as covering for other
confections, we know best today. The same is true of the manufacturing
processes that nearly all large-scale manufacturers follow to the
present day." (Moss, 2009:61-62)

I recommend you to take a look on this book:
Cocoa and chocolate, 1765-1914
By: W. G. Clarence-Smith
Routledge, 2000
Read it online:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ksmna7JQ9IwC

And the chapter 3 of this one:
Chocolate: A Global History
by: Sarah Moss, Alexander Badenoch
Reaktion Books, 2009
http://books.google.com/books?id=AXx3PgAACAAJ

If you want early texts, take a look on this website:
http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/ctc.htm

Best regards.

C.A.A.V.

On Oct 24, 9:29Â*am, Allegrobox <Allegrobox.
> wrote:
> What was it like? I mean for eating, not for drinking. Particularly in
> 1895 if possible. Did it come in bars? If so, were there squares on the
> bars? If not, and they came in a box, did they have fillings, or was it
> more about the shapes?
>
> --
> Allegrobox

Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (Was: Victorian Era Chocolate)
 

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:29:38 +0000, Allegrobox wrote:

> What was it like? I mean for eating, not for drinking. Particularly in
> 1895 if possible. Did it come in bars? If so, were there squares on the
> bars? If not, and they came in a box, did they have fillings, or was it
> more about the shapes?

While it may not have much info regarding what you seek, the
"Encyclopedia of Food and Culture" is a great resource unmatched by
any on line resource.

http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/chocolate

It is an in-print book, which costs about $900 last I looked. It
has only recently been made available on-line for free (used to be
by subscription only).

This would be of interest to anyone here in rec.food.historic, and
some people in rec.food.cooking as well.

http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia

It is also downloadable VIA torrents.

-sw

Encyclopediaof Foodand Culture (Was: Victorian Era Chocolate)
 

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:29:38 +0000, Allegrobox wrote:

> What was it like? I mean for eating, not for drinking. Particularly in
> 1895 if possible. Did it come in bars? If so, were there squares on the
> bars? If not, and they came in a box, did they have fillings, or was it
> more about the shapes?

While it may not have much info regarding what you seek, the
"Encyclopedia of Food and Culture" is a great resource unmatched by
any on line resource.

http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/chocolate

It is an in-print book, which costs about $900 last I looked. It
has only recently been made available on-line for free (used to be
by subscription only).

This would be of interest to anyone here in rec.food.historic, and
some people in rec.food.cooking as well.

http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia

It is also downloadable VIA torrents.

-sw

Encyclopediaof Foodand Culture (Was: Victorian Era Chocolate)
 

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:16:56 -0400, James Silverton wrote:

> blake wrote on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:02:57 -0400:
>
>>> On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:29:38 +0000, Allegrobox wrote:
>>>
>>>> What was it like? I mean for eating, not for drinking.
>>>> Particularly in 1895 if possible. Did it come in bars? If
>>>> so, were there squares on the bars? If not, and they came in
>>>> a box, did they have fillings, or was it more about the
>>>> shapes?
>>>
>>> While it may not have much info regarding what you seek, the
>>> "Encyclopedia of Food and Culture" is a great resource
>>> unmatched by any on line resource.
>>>
>>> http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/chocolate
>>>
>>> It is an in-print book, which costs about $900 last I looked.
>>> It has only recently been made available on-line for free
>>> (used to be by subscription only).
>>>
>>> This would be of interest to anyone here in
>>> rec.food.historic, and some people in rec.food.cooking as
>>> well.
>>>
>>> http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia
>>>
>>> It is also downloadable VIA torrents.
>
>> bookmarked for future reference.
>
> A fascinating and amazingly comprehensive resource. I regret not
> thanking the original poster but I don't seem able to find the post.
> Like you, I've bookmarked it.

The original poster was from rec.food.histoic asking about
chocolate. I included his post in it's entirety. I posted the
encyclopedia reference, and cross-posted it to RFC. Then blake
removed the crossposting.

It is a great reference; I'm glad somebody thinks it's useful. I
sure do. I suspect it's so expensive since they had to get
permission and pay royalties to reprint some/all of the articles.

I used to have an on-line subscription to it through my library,
where they also had a hardcopy of the book in the reference section
(not available for checkout) but now it's free for all.

It would still be a great addition to my "library" <ahem>, and will
be if I ever see it for $150 or less.

-sw

-sw

Encyclopediaof Foodand Culture (Was: Victorian Era Chocolate)
 

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:06:43 -0500, Sqwertz >
wrote:

> It would still be a great addition to my "library" <ahem>, and will
> be if I ever see it for $150 or less.

Have you checked abebooks.com recently?

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Encyclopediaof Foodand Culture (Was: Victorian Era Chocolate)
 

Its two volumes are, indeed, useful. As general references, I
frequently use them (and Oxford's encyclopedias -- the two on
American food & drink, and the earlier, worldwide, one edited by
Alan
Davidson) as starting points.

As for cost and permissions... I wrote three articles in the
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, which are now available online,
and
was never asked for permission or paid for the electronic versions.
It's possible that some authors were contacted and paid, but I
wasn't
even notified that they were going online. I stumbled across my own
articles by accident.

Gary

PS: It's great that this forum is not just a venue for spam anymore!


> It is a great reference; I'm glad somebody thinks it's useful. I
> sure do. *I suspect it's so expensive since they had to get
> permission and pay royalties to reprint some/all of the articles. *