The Rest Is History - 425. The History Of Chocolate

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

‘For if a person fatigued with long and hard labour, or with a violent agitation of the mind, takes a good dish of chocolate, he shall perceive almost instantly that his faintness shall cease, and his strength shall be recovered’ The Cacao tree was first domesticated by the Olmecs in Mesoamerica, possibly as early as 1500 BC, and was then first encountered by Europeans in the 16th century, when it is said that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma welcomed Hernan Cortes into his dominion with a mysterious dark drink. Indeed, Chocolate was originally consumed as a drink, and was a cornerstone of Aztec life, whether used as currency or as part of religious rituals. Brought back by the conquistadors to Europe, Chocolate slowly spread through the continent, particularly among the ruling classes, up until the industrial revolution of the 19th century, when technical advancements allowed for chocolate to be made into a food, at a far lower cost. This paved the way for Quaker families, such as the Cadburys or the Frys, keen to find an alternative to alcohol, to make the snack available to the masses… Tom and Dominic have partnered with Cadbury, in celebration of their 200th year anniversary, to explore the story of how chocolate, from its Mesoamerican origins, became a British favourite. Over the coming months, Cadbury will be announcing more plans for its 200th anniversary year, including ways that fans nationwide can get involved in the celebrations. For more information, visit: https://www.cadbury.co.uk/about/anniversary/200-years-of-cadbury/ *The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024* Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London!  Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. If a person fatigued with long and hard labour, or with a violent agitation of the mind, takes a good dish of chocolat, he shall perceive almost instantly that his faintness shall cease and his strength shall be recovered.

So that, Dominic, was written by Monsieur de Queloux, who, as you're probably able to tell, was a Frenchman. Was he? He was writing in the early 18th century. Yeah. And that was translated into English in 1724. And it is from the Natural History of Chocolate. And you may be wondering what qualified Monsieur de Queloux to opine on the subject of chocolate. And you may be wondering what qualified Monsieur de Quelou

to opine on the subject of chocolate. And it was because he had actually, he'd spent time out in the Caribbean, in the French West Indies, where he had been utterly converted to the notion that chocolate was not only tasty, but good for you. I completely agree with him, Tom. But you will find a very shocking French opinion coming up. Right. Because in the opinion of Monsieur de Quelou, he said that one ounce of chocolate contains as much nourishment as a pound of beef. An ounce of chocolate? Yeah. I'd want more than an ounce. One ounce of chocolate. But I mean, as an Englishman, a proud Englishman. Yeah, absolutely. Would you agree with that, that chocolate outweighs beef?

I suppose you could have them both, couldn't you? if you had a kind of Mexican mole, like a beef mole with a chocolate sauce. I guess you could. Anyway, so to continue why Monsieur de Calais was so enthused by chocolate. It is a dish so cheap as not to come above a penny. If tradesmen and artisans were once aware of it, there are few who would not take the advantage of so easy a method of breakfasting. Breakfasting. So agreeably. Yeah, breakfast the advantage of so easy a method of breakfasting. Breakfasting. Agreeably. Yeah, breakfasting.

At so small a charge. And to be well supported till dinner time without taking any other sustenance, solid or liquid. I love hearing how Mr. Tichelou spoke. I think that's a real treat for the listeners. We were all about the authenticity. So there you have him promoting chocolate as the ultimate kind of breakfast food. Yes. That is, it's so sustaining that it will keep you going right the way up to supper.

But he also recommends it as a medicine and suggests really to enhance the medicinal effects that you should add powders of millipedes, vapers, earthworms, and the livers and galls of eels. The gall of an eel. I'd love the gall of an eel. Where haven't people made that in chocolate form? I love chocolate, but I've never had millipedes or vipers or earthworms or the livers and ghouls of eels with it. But, I mean, maybe some kind of retro chocolate brand.

Well, if only there were a retro chocolate brand who would do that. Now, Tom, we do love chocolate and the rest is history. And we are thrilled, aren't we? We're absolutely thrilled that we're able to do this episode in partnership with our friends at Cadbury. Because do you know what, Tom? It's their 200th anniversary this year. And, Donny, very important to emphasise that it is Cadbury and not Cadbury's, as I had always thought. Well, Theo, our producer, foolishly always calls it Cadbury's.

But he's quite wrong, Tom. I know. Couldn't be wronger. He probably goes around talking about Boots the chemist rather than Boot the chemist, as we all know it is. Exactly, we all know it's Boot. Right, so Dominic, so chocolate. Yes. An amazing substance, but also an amazing history, right?

A very rich, a very rich history. Rich. Rich and creamy. Rich and creamy history, Tom. Yes, I thought what we would do, because we have actually talked about doing a history of chocolates since about, you know, episode 20 of this podcast. Yeah, we have.

So I thought what we would do is in the first half, we talk about the deep history of chocolate. So the Olmecs, the Maya, the Aztecs, the Spaniards. Yeah, because we haven't talked about that for at least two months. Yes. And then in the second half, chocolate, Tom, there is no better window than a chocolate window into the story of modernity industrialization and victorian britain that is so

samurai so where are we beginning so should we i think we should begin with the olmecs so our listeners may know the olmecs as the fellows who made enormous heads didn't they stone heads yes in miso america and they almost look african don't they people who are into atlantis were very excited about these. They were indeed. I mean, obviously, they're not African. No. They're absolutely Olmec.

Very impressive, aren't they? You must have seen them in the museum in Mexico. In Mexico City, in the Anthropology Museum. Enormous kind of cuboid, exuding this incredible sense of power. Again, an Olmec head made of chocolate, Tom, would be a superb thing. That would keep you going. So they seem to have believed that cocoa, so they were grinding cocoa beans,

which are obviously native to Mesoamerica. And which look like sheep s***, correct? Correct, because when English privateers later on found them, they would throw them into the sea, as we will discover. So the Olmecs, if you're interested in the Olmecs, there's a brilliant book for younger readers, actually, which talks about Olmecs' civilization at the beginning, called Adventure in Time, The Fall of the Aztecstecs but anyway that's by the by i just recommend that to the listeners the olmecs were the people who invented that bonkers ball game where you'd hit

the ball with your hips and if you lost you'd be killed and you exactly be sacrificed and some archaeologists think that when you lost this ball game you you had bad hips, you lost the ball game, you were sacrificed. There was somehow cocoa or chocolate drinking at this moment. There were crushed cocoa beans that they have found with the bodies of the sacrificial victims. But not kind of like you play a game of football or cricket and then go and have a pint. You wouldn't come off the ball court. Have a glass of chocolate? Have a Bourneville.

Yeah. No, I don't think so. I think they thought... More sacral. I think they thought it was sacral, yeah. I mean, so much of this is supposition.

So the Olmec's about 1,500 BC, aren't they? And then they seem to have passed A, the ball game, and B, the tradition of grinding the cocoa beans and making this kind of bitter chocolatey drink.

Because it is bitter at this point, isn't it? It is. I mean, that's the key thing. Yes. So we're not kind of talking. They're not flavouring it with sugar, for example. So they seem to have passed that to the Maya.

And the sense we have from what fragments of kind of Maya history we have is that they would drink this chocolate in ritual celebrations and at sort of peace treaties. Would it be social? Would you kind of, you know? Yes. Like you say, you know, have a sherry? You'd say, have a sherry. Yes, I think that's probably right. Oh, lovely. Thank you.

And then the Aztecs, the Mexicas, I believe you would call them, Tom. Yes, I would. They were definitely well into their chocolate. So the sense we have is that they would have it in the market, in Tenochtitlan, in the great sort of suburban market they have there. There are lots of cacao beans. And would this be brought as tribute?

Yes, I think they are bringing it as tribute. And what is more, they may well have used the beans as barter because, of course, they didn't have a currency. It's one of the things the Spaniards noticed. They're very convenient, aren't they? Yeah. I mean, a big pile of beans. There's some beans.

Even more convenient than gold. Yeah. Which, of course, is what the Spanish have come for. The Spanish have come for gold. Anyway, we don't want to do the fall of the Aztecs no but i'm just wondering when the spanish arrive yes do they pick up on the fact that actually these weird beans are incredibly valuable or are they initially not interested in no i don't think they are interested in them because of course they wouldn't seem valuable to they may think well these people use the beans but it's

not like they're excited about the beans and swapping them among themselves or anything like that and again other beans are they purely for drink? Yeah, you will need them. Again, is there a kind of sacral dimension to it? So hard to say. That's a really good question. So depending who you read, there are some accounts, you know, Cortez, for example, goes to stay with Montezuma. We did a thousand episodes on this in 1519. And is Montezuma giving him hot chocolate to drink? Some historians, when they paint the scene, they have them drinking kind of hot chocolate together.

But if it has this, as you say, sacral significance, which has been passed down over, frankly, thousands of years, is it plausible that they're just sitting around, you know, Alfredo Alvarado and Gilles, quaffing? Bloody good chocolate. Mugs of chocolate. I don't know and I think we I think we can't possibly

know because so much of this we are seeing in a very kind of refracted way anyway Tom to hammer this home there is religious

there is a ritual dimension and in fact actually I should have mentioned this already I know you love a friar don't you we love a lot of accounts from friars

so there's a Franciscan friar called Toribio de Benevente and he says he went to our old friends, the Tlaxcalans, so the great rival of Tenochtitlan, Mexico City. And he says that on the Feast of All Souls in the Indian towns, many offerings are made for the dead. Some are for corn, others blankets, others food, bread, chickens, and in place of wine, they offer chocolate.

So there's two sides to that, I guess. One is that it's in place of wine, which would suggest it is a social drink. But the other is that it also plays a part in a religious. Well, unless, I mean, wine plays a religious role in Christianity, perhaps there's an echo there. But obviously chocolate doesn't have any sacral connotations for the Spanish. No.

And so how long does it take them to kind of work out that they're worth having? Well, we know when the first instance of them bringing it back to Spain is, or the first recorded instance, I should say, maybe they've done it beforehand. But we have a source that says it's 1544. So what's that? Quarter of a century after the Spanish had first pitched up in Mexico, and they present a gift of cacao seeds to King Philip II. He's a very gloomy man, isn't he, Philip II? I don't see him as a chocolate man at all. In the Escorial.

In the Escorial, exactly. Now, historians think this probably wasn't the very first time. Priests might have brought about merchants and so on. Well, I guess it would be like old India hands bringing back a taste of a curry. So maybe old Mexico has to meet up in Madrid for chocolate. The issue they have with chocolate, of course, is that it is, I mean, it's important to stress this point, it's very bitter. The ground up stuff.

But it's giving you a caffeine hit. Yes, I guess it is giving you a hit. So there's an Italian guy called Girolamo Benzoni, and in 1575, he was very disobliging about chocolate. He went to Mexico and sort of roamed around a bit, and he said, I won't do it in an Italian accent. He said, it seemed more, I will, it seemed more a drink for pigs. So he says he was there for a year and he didn't want to drink any. Whenever he went past a settlement, somebody would come out and say, you know, have a chocolate, have a chocolate.

They would be amazed when he refused it. And they would go away laughing. Laughing at him because of his chocolate. Idiocy. But he couldn't find wine, so eventually he cracked and started drinking chocolate. And he said he was very disappointed. So when it gets to Spain, people by that point are sweetening it already. I mean, the chocolate that you and I eat, Tom, has been sweetened, obviously. So with sugar? They are using sugar.

They're using sugar. They're using honey. And they're using sugar. They're using sugar, they're using honey, and they're using vanilla. And of course, the Spanish have already been producing sugar for some considerable time on the Canary Islands. And then they've taken sugar to the Caribbean as well. But there is also an interesting religious dimension, Tom. Have you seen this? I know you love a religious dimension.

Well, you think everything has a religious dimension. No, I don't. I had no idea that there was a religious dimension. Did you not? No. So the issue, I mean,. I had no idea that there was a religious dimension. Did you not? No. So the issue, I mean, there are multiple issues, but if we sort of cut to the chase, issue number one is if the Mexica have been using it in their rituals.

Oh, is it idolatrous? Is it idolatrous? Is it bad form to be drinking chocolate? And it seems that the Dominicans are very down on chocolate. So they actually supposedly pester the Pope to outlaw it. To ban it? Yeah, to ban chocolate. And apparently in 1569, Pope Pius V drank some chocolate, and he said it was, and I quote, so foul he decided there was no need to ban it.

Right. So again, not a friend of Cadbury. Not a friend of Cadbury. Now the second debate is a big issue for Rishi Sunak. So you may have read, Tom, Rishi Sunak fasts. He does. Yeah, he fasts all Monday, doesn't he? Yeah.

Sunday night at five o'clock on Tuesday morning. Strange time to break a fast, but anyway, there you go. He's got a lot to do. He gets up early. Like you. Anyway, the problem for Rishi Sunak with chocolate is he drinks tea and coffee. He can do that. Could he drink chocolate?

What would your answer be there? Yeah, I'd say so. Well, you would agree with some friars, but not others. So you would disagree with Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who in 1636 wrote a book with the catchy title, Question Moral, Si il cioccolate che parante è l'euno ecclesiastico, which is all our listeners will know, is does chocolate break an ecclesiastical fast? A moral question. And he thought it did. He thought it did. He said, this is patently a food. This is no drink.

Is that because it's very thick? Maybe so. I don't know. Maybe he just didn't like chocolate and he wanted to stop people drinking it. He wanted to diss it. A different man, Tomas Otado, who came from an order I read called the Clerics' Regular Minor. Do you know them? No, I've never heard of them.

He wrote another book called Cioccolati e Tabacco, Auno Ecclesiastico e Natural. So he's in favour. Yeah. The Jesuits got involved. They got a cardinal. He wrote a 16-page opinion. How are people writing so much about chocolate?

This guy, Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio, he wrote a thing called De Chocolatis Potu, on the use of chocolate. Right. He said, oh, it's a drink. Come on, it's a drink. And then unbelievably, the Pope, Alexander VII, 1666,

he pronounced in Latin. Do you want to read the Latin, Tom? Liquidum non frangit jejunum. Liquids do not break the fast. Yeah, so he said definitely a liquid. Well, it's brilliant to know that during the Counter-Reformation, these questions are dominating the finest brains in Catholic Europe. During the age of the Thirty Years' War.

So anyway, the Spanish would give chocolate to other European courts as a gift. They would say, look at this extraordinary drink. And this is spreading at the same time as coffee. Yes, exactly so. So it's the sense that they're going head to head, which is more fashionable, coffee or chocolate? I think a lot of people are very suspicious of chocolate. The French, apparently, are very suspicious.

And why are they suspicious? Bitter. It's bitter, Tom. Bitter. So they're not worried about the sinister, pagan, idolatrous connotations. And also the issue of the fast, I suppose. The Sunak issue. Now, the English are the great heroes of the story of chocolate in the 19th century, of course, as we would discover.

But at this stage, we are very late adopters, Tom. Right. And this is because every time, say, Francis Drake and all the lads are out capturing Spanish ships. Yes. And they're looking for gold and they pile onto a ship and all they find are cocoa beans. And this is where the English feeling that cocoa beans, because they look like sheep droppings, are not worth keeping and so they just dump them in the sea.

Yeah, they just think, what are the Spanish up to? Sailing around the Atlantic. Despite the fact that by this point, actually, cocoa beans must be worth quite a lot. You would assume so, yeah. But there is a story, certainly in 1579, there's the story of privateers throwing the cocoa beans overboard. And then in 1648, a chronicler writes and says,

the Dutch do this. So maybe a Protestant thing, maybe a Protestant suspicion. I mean, maybe. A godly suspicion. Yeah, all these cardinals and theologians, Catholic theologians have been pronouncing chocolate, and the Dutch need to say, listen, this is papist nonsense. But obviously the big turning point is 1655,

and that is when Cromwell captures Jamaica from the Spanish. Because, Dominic... Yes. Presumably, you need a certain supply of labour... Right, exactly. ...to harvest this stuff, right? Exactly. Where is this labour coming from?

So at this point, what has happened is, people who listen to episodes about Christopher Columbus will recall that with the deaths of all the Taino people on Hispaniola and so on, and in the Caribbean, the Spanish started bringing over African slaves and practice they had originated in the Canary Islands. And by the 1650s, the African slave population of the Caribbean is what, about 80% of the whole? And a lot of these islands have effectively been turned into enormous plantations.

Sugar, most famously, but also for growing cocoa. And what's the balance between sugar and cocoa? Sugar is by far the more... Okay. So we did an episode, didn't we, on Benjamin Lay, where we talked about what life was like in the plantations in the late 17th, 18th century. Yes. So do listen to that.

So chocolate forms part of that kind of triangular trade. The English have taken Jamaica in 1655, so then they obviously got more invested in the chocolate business, as it were. We get our first recorded mention in 1657, just two years later. And that's in the wake of the Cromwellian conquest of Jamaica. Exactly. And is there a sense that Cromwell sent this great expedition to Jamaica, it's basically the only thing that they've got.

Yes. It's really been a bit of a disaster. And do you think there's a kind of feeling on the part of the Commonwealth that they need to hype up the gains? Yeah, the gains. So, you know, okay, we haven't got any gold, but we have got this incredible sheep droppings. I'm not sure about that.

I don't think it's directed from on high. I think it's just... It's starting to kind of come in. Yeah, it's just sort of to percolate in, if that's not too much of a coffee-based metaphor. So anyway, the public advertiser, 1657, an advertisement says, at a Frenchman's house in Queensgate Alley,

actually interesting that it's a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink called chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time at reasonable rates. And doesn't Peeps drink it? Peeps does drink it. Peeps drinks it in 1664, about noon, out with Commissioner Pett, and he and I into a coffee house to drink giocolatte. Very good, he says.

Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's lovely. And you get our first recipe, our first English recipe about this time, 1650s. They're flavouring it because it is so bitter. So the recipe says put in sugar. It's a very strange recipe, actually. A long red pepper, cloves, anise seed, almonds, nuts, orange water, flour and cacao. The hotter it is drunk, the better it is, says the recipe's author.

So it's still absolutely, at this point, a drink. They're not kind of making chocolate bars. No, it's totally, you can't make a chocolate bar. And we'll get onto how you make a chocolate bar in due course. It's totally a drink. It is very expensive. So there's high import duties on the beans that come from the Caribbean. So about 50 pence per pound, which is a lot of money. So one historian's done the calculation. That's a week's work for a skilled tradesman to buy a pound of cocoa beans. And the way you would buy it, you would buy it ground. It's a bit like you're buying ground coffee. And it would be sort of pressed into a little cake wrapped in paper. And because it's so expensive, these cakes are tiny. I mean, they're a couple of ounces. They're not big at at all but by the late 17th century you have chocolate houses

and the most famous one is mrs white's cocoa house or mrs white's chocolate house which is in st james's and some of our listeners will have heard of the oldest of all st james's gentlemen's clubs which is white that's what it is oh right white's the club which i think david cameron's yes and all the all the waiters are called george yes something like that and they have one of these White's. That's what it is. Oh, right. White's, the club, which I think David Cameron's father resigned from. I think all the waiters are called George. Yeah, something like that. And they have one of these betting books that Blackbrook's and other clubs have with amusing bets placed by the Duke of Wellington or something.

Evolving balloons. Yes, exactly. So White's was, it was a chocolate shop. Oh, brilliant. And it was notorious, apparently apparently because rakes would go and have lewd conversations over their chocolate fruit and nut

please so damn your eyes so Daniel Defoe he said fathers should warn their daughters of the evils

of promiscuous conversations that take place in chocolate houses wow so yeah watch out so this is interesting.

Chocolate clearly plays multiple roles. So one thing it's not, it's absolutely not, is for children. There's no mention of... Well, no, because if it's associated with rakes and promiscuity... Right, and idolatry. Well, presumably not idolatry by this point.

No, no, no. But rakes and promiscuity. But hellfire clubs and things. Exactly. And this reputation lasts quite a long time, the idea that it's an aphrodisiac. The colonies, for example, preserve this. So the Virginia Almanac, 1770,

warns the fair sex to be in a particular manner careful how they meddle with romances, chocolate, novels and the like, especially in the spring, it says. These are all inflamers and very dangerous. And is that where the kind of association of chocolate with romance comes from? Like a flake, Tom. The flake, I mean, it's kind of Valentine's chocolates, that kind of thing. I guess so, yeah.

Chocolate is regarded as erotic, isn't it? Yeah. People don't regard tea or coffee as erotic. No. So big tea and big coffee. They've missed out. They have missed out. So it's an aphrodisiac.

Bizarrely, it's also a breakfast drink. In 1796, a guy called John Perkins said the general breakfast to people from the highest to the lowest is tea, coffee or chocolate. There's a cookbook, Islam Resilience, 1814. Maria Rundell, a new system of domestic cookery. She says cocoa, a light and wholesome breakfast. She has this recipe. You make basically a chocolate syrup and you can store it for up to a week and you add it to milk

and then you make a big hot chocolate, bowl of hot chocolate, and that's your breakfast. That's your breakfast. And do you know what? When I did my French exchange in the 1980s, we all drank bowls of chocolate at breakfast. Monsieur de Calais would be thrilled to know that.

But the Frenchman of the house, he drank beer at breakfast. Right. And we all drank hot chocolate. The other thing, Tom, is it's medicinal. So I think you mentioned at the beginning, didn't you, mixing it with eel's gall and eel's livers. Vipers and earthworms.

Vipers. I mean, that is very common in the 18th century. Apothecary shops would sell chocolate. You went in with you know a cough a hangover you said your libido

was in poor shape apothecary would say There's nothing like a ghoul of eel to get the blood coursing. Benjamin Franklin apparently recommended chocolate as a cure

for smallpox. That's the kind of idiocy that leads to tax rebellions. It absolutely is. And Thomas Jefferson, not a friend of the rest of his history, as is on record, he wrote a letter to our old friend John Adams. Oh, yeah. And he said...

What did he say? He had this American colonial voice. He said... Hello, my lover. The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the preference over tea and coffee in america which it has in spain well that's not true is it so um thomas jefferson yeah also believed that out in the west of america there were mastodons to be found and he

was wrong about that as well wrong about almost everything i think i'd say it's almost jefferson right we're halfway through tom and i think the great conclusion we can draw from this, the overriding thing is that chocolate is a drink. Yes. Nobody has eaten chocolate at this point. But also how exotic it is. It's exotic.

It's exciting. It's erotic. It's medicinal. It's a great breakfast food. It's a breakfast drink. Yes. It's a breakfast drink. It's not a breakfast food.

You've betrayed yourself there. But the good news for you is that all this is about to change. It's one of the great turnarounds, actually. One of the most astonishing revolutions in history. Because in the second half, Tom, chocolate will become a food. Well, we're approaching that momentous date of 1824 when Cadbury was founded. Very good.

So after the break, we will get on to that. One of the great moments in history. on to that. Can't wait. One of the great moments in history. Can't wait. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are talking about the history of chocolate, hitherto a liquid, but soon to become a bar. Would that be fair?

That is fair. Because we are now approaching basically a wave of Quakers. And we're being sponsored by a company that is named after one before we get onto a wave of categories. Or 1650s, really. Well, 1654 is the date that a fellow called George Fox was born. He's a man very dear to your heart, isn't he? Well, so we're very keen on Quakers on the rest of history. So Benjamin Lay was a Quaker. And Mary Fisher, who was the most recently crowned queen of historical love Ireland, wasn't she? She was.

With Tony Benn. So she was a Quaker as well. And it all kicks off, as you say, with this guy, George Fox, who is born in 1624. But the Quaker movement doesn't really start kind of taking wing until the 1650s. Right. So the same decade that the English... Take Jamaica. Take Jamaica.

The years of chocolate. But back in England, it's a period of religious turmoil. The king's been executed. Cromwell is in charge. And there is kind of freedom of religious opinion. Cromwell is very keen on that. And the Quakers essentially are, they're a kind of very radical Protestant sect.

They are kind of seeking the light within them. And when they feel this light descend on them, there's kind of ecstatic, shaking, trembling, roaring, foaming at the mouth. So the scenes in one of our Restless History Club get-togethers. It absolutely is. And so the name Quaker begins as an insult, but like so many other things, it becomes a kind of badge of pride. There's something to do with hats. They won't take their hats off. They won't take their hats off because they are, and women refuse to curtsy. So it becomes a kind of badge of pride. There's something to do with hats. They won't take their hats off. They won't take their hats off because they are,

and women refuse to curtsy. So there's a kind of very moving story, which Alec Ryrie in his wonderful book on Protestants tells. There's a servant girl who is in attendance at a kind of aristocrat's table. And all the lords and rakes are laughing at the fact that she won't curtsy. And they offer her 20 pounds to curtsy.

And she replied that even if he offered her his entire estate, I durst not do it for all honour belongeth to God. And so in that principle, there is no titles, no clergy, absolute sense of human equality, gender equality, and a kind of sobriety. And in the 1650s, this is pushed to very radical extremes, so much so that Quaker evangelists will appear in marketplaces and take their clothes off, like Adam, going back to the kind of the lost innocence that prevailed in the Garden of Eden before the fall.

But in the wake of that kind of convulsive decade, Quakers become, well, I suppose, more sober. I was about to say, later Quakers are the very last people who would take their clothes off in public, aren't they? Yeah, they are. So that kind of radical tradition tends to fade. But the absolute commitment to gender equality and social equality, pacifism. Philanthropy. Philanthropy.

So I think to modernise, they seem very kind of attractive, the Christian sect. They're driving modernity aren't they so in the 18th century an age of extraordinary change and then the early 19th century quakers are in the forefront of that so it's quakers people from shropshire will be delighted to hear me mention that abraham darby is a quaker from shropshire and it's a darby family that's responsible for the world's first iron bridge tom where is that dominic so that's in iron bridge and shropshire. It's one of the great tourist destinations in all the world. The Stockton-Darlington Railway, which we talked about in our railways episode with Dan Jackson.

That was owned by a Quaker. It's not Stonehenge, is it? Josiah Wedwood. Yes, great potter. Potter was a Quaker. And Quakers are very, very active in trade and in banking. I think because they've been pushed to the margins, haven't they, of English life. So a little bit like Jews as well.

Like Jews and Armenians. And there's a lot of cross-fertilisation between Jewish and Quaker communities in the Netherlands and in England. So because Quakers are not respectable, they can't really make headway in their traditional professions. So they open shops. Right, so they're not Anglican, so therefore they can't go to Oxford and Cambridge, for instance. Exactly. And the other thing, of course, Herbarklers and Lloyds both have a Quaker history. They're the two banks. And as you said, Quakers become very sober. I mean, they are literally sober, aren't they? Because they're

all about temperance. Yeah, so they're not drinking wine. Exactly. So it's like the poor Italian in Mexico. There's no wine. Yes. And so he ends up having to drink chocolate. Had he been a Quaker, he'd probably have got stuck into the chocolate straight away but this is why quakers are getting into chocolate is it because it's an alternative to exactly so there are two families in particular two quaker families who are who are really interesting in the history of britain and chocolate and it is britain that is a chocolate pioneer in many ways in the 19th century and ends up leading the world in chocolate hooray yeah top nation tom it's so many respects and chocolate just happens to be one of them.

What can I say? So the first one is the fries. So there's a guy called Joseph Fry. He's a very austere, you know, plain clothes, keeps his hat on, that kind of Quaker. He starts an apothecary business

in Bristol in 1753. Is he from Bristol? Yeah, you're going to do a Bristol accent. No, mate. Brilliant. People will love that. He sells chocolate from his ap do a Bristol accent. No, mate. Brilliant. People will love that. He sells chocolate from his apothecary shop. Obviously, it's medicinal, but he sells it, interestingly, to people in newly fashionable Bath.

Oh, does he? Yes. It's Babylon, isn't it? To a Quaker. Yeah. But he's turning up. Would you like a chocolate? Exactly.

Exactly. So when Jane Austen was in Bath, she might have drunk some chocolate. When Nelson was recuperating in Bath, he might have drunk chocolate. So Fry does very well at this. He sends agents out by the 1760s to 50 different towns in England. And what is it that's enabling him to sell it where other people haven't? He's making very good quality hot chocolate. He has some interesting press that he uses to grind the machines.

Would you like my top quality chocolate? He has a cocoa manufacturing. Does he? And he uses water power to grind. So he's industrializing. He's an industrialist. It's the industrialization of chocolate. It is.

That's what's so interesting because what is more, he has a relative called Joseph Storrs Fry who takes control of the company in 1795. He grinds the beans, Tom, using a James Watt steam engine. Wow, it's all kicking off, isn't it? So it is the Industrial Revolution. I mean, basically, you have cocoa factories.

And do you think that's why Britain becomes top chocolate nation? I totally think that. So by the early 1800s, the Frys have the biggest cocoa works in the world. That is such a source of patriotic pride it is but there's bad form to come because actually the dutch are still hanging around oh no everybody thinks that dutch history has ended in 1688 when they came to england but no actually still going on is it yes there's a father and son they're called the van houtens casparas and kudrad van houten and in the 18s, it turns out that they invent a machine.

Now, this is complicated, Tom. We're not the rest is mechanics. I should look forward to it. You're explicating it for me, though. This machine, it presses the fat from roasted cocoa beans. How does it do that, Dominic? Well, you bring down one thing and then it presses out something else. The fat oozes out, doesn't it?

So the center of the bean, as you will know called the it's called the nib the nib the nib and uh the uh center of the bean has a lot of natural fat in it and basically it's a hydraulic press and it presses this out as sort of a cake of cocoa powder with fat sans fat there's no fat in it but now what you do you mix that powder with sugar and then you mix it with the now what you do, you mix that powder with sugar, and then you mix it with the fat, the cocoa butter that you pressed out. That creates a solid, and this is chocolate that you would eat. So the Dutch, it's always the way with the Dutch, isn't it? They're the great sort of...

They get there first, and then we nick it. And then they make a mess of it, and then they don't properly monetize it. I don't see that as a thing to be proud of. I mean, that's what happens to Britain as well. Look at our amazing lead in hovercrafts. Yes, hovercrafts and home computers. Yeah, we blew it all. Now, we said there were two Quaker families.

Yes. Important now that we unveil the other one. Have we now arrived at Cadbury? Yeah, Cadbury. So they are from Birmingham. Oh, right. Which is nice. My dad.

Yes. So the Holland family are from Birmingham, aren't they? Yeah. The workshop of the world, Tom. Second city of the empire in the 19th century. Yeah. The great boom town of kind of late 18th century, early 19th century. Britain, I suppose, to some extent, the successor to Manchester as the kind of crucible of modernity.

Yeah. So absolutely the kind of place that would love a chocolate bar. Kind of the most cutting edge place in the world. Food that you can get. Yes. Most. Kind of the most cutting edge... Place in the world....food that you can get. Yes, most cutting edge place, most cutting edge food. So in 1824, this chap called John Cadbury, who's a Quaker, he opens a shop at 93 Bull Street, Birmingham, and he sells tea, coffee, and cocoa.

So at that point, in his mind, it's a drink, and it's kind of, you know, it coexists with tea and coffee. He grinds his own beans in a pestle and mortar, very time-consuming, no doubt. But he opens a factory in 1831 and he, like Fry, is inspired by

this Dutch machine. Right. The difference between Cadbury and their competitors is that they are much more high-end. Well, of course. I mean,

it's the best kind of chocolate, isn't it? So, listen, their competitors will, I'm sorry to say, this reflects poorly on Britain, they will adulterate their chocolate powder

with brick dust with brick dust or with lead that's very kind of Charles Dickens isn't it it is kind of hard times

but Cadbury's don't do that they do have potato flour in there and a bit of treacle and a bit of sago but who doesn't have a bit of that

a lot of people would pay good money for that and in fact they do but not brick dust and not vipers or earthworms or the gall of eels.

And actually, John Cadbury gets a reputation. People say he is the chocolatier to the stars. He is the chocolatier to Queen Victoria, no less, because he gets a royal warrant. So she is amused. Any other cocoa manufacturer, he makes a line called Queen's Own Chocolate. The purple coloring that so many people associate with Cadbury. Purple wrapping paper. Was the royal purple, Tom.

Oh, yeah. They would have wrappers with the likeness of Victorian Albert on them, which is lovely. So Cadbury was doing really well by the 1860s or so. It was very high-end, posh chocolate. His sons, Richard and George, take it over. But they still have the issue that all the chocolate companies have, is how do you differentiate yourselves from your rivals? Fruit and nut.

Well, not at this point, Tom. I know you like a fruit and nut. I rivals fruit and nut well not at this point Tom I know you like a fruit and nut I love fruit and nut but no actually what they think of as their secret weapon is a thing called

Iceland moss Iceland moss yes is it literally moss it's lichen oh yeah they blend the two

bizarrely it's sold in yellow packaging you don't often see a yellow package and what's the point of this they say it's got a reindeer

on the packaging and it shows how healthy it is right it's very healthy because you're getting some moss some lichen

and you're getting some chocolate and it's from Iceland but it seems a weird thing I mean because people aren't normally tucking I mean you would have

fruit and you would have nut and so the presence of fruit and nut in a Cadbury chocolate bar you've got fruit and nut on the brain Tom I'm rather hoping

to become an influencer right get fruit and nut chocolate bars I'm holding. I'm rather hoping to become an influencer. Right. Get fruit and nut chocolate bars. I'm holding out for an Iceland moss contract. But lichen. Yeah. Nobody eats that. Do you want to know what the aptly named historian Deborah Cadbury says about Iceland moss, Tom?

Yeah, tell me. The untried combination of fluffy textured lichen and fatty cocoa bean would not excite the English palate. Right. Now, they mention the wrapper, the yellow wrapper with its reindeer. This is quite a new departure for a Quaker company because the Quakers had hitherto been very suspicious of puffery. So that's advertising? Advertising.

Well, they would be, yeah. But by the late 1860s, actually Cadbury are leading the world in advertising. Are they? They are. They get endorsements from The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. What's that?

Chocolate is good for you? Chocolate is good for you. Medicinal. Mix it with an earthworm. Brilliant. You're laughing. They have picture boxes, which previously Quakers had been very suspicious of. Don't put pictures on your chocolate.

And what pictures? What are they? Of Queen Victoria. Right. Or here's one. A Birmingham Gazette says, pictorial novelties. Chaste yet simple. A blue-eyed maiden maiden some six summers old

designed and drawn by Mr. Richard Cadbury okay so a little bit of Victorian yeah sentimentalism exactly they launched their first

Easter egg in 1875 and they also go very upmarket so they're very very upmarket their slogan is absolutely pure therefore best in the world

which reminds me Dominic so while this is happening in Britain yes the Americans must surely be developing, I mean, no offence to our American listeners, chocolate, but they're terrible chocolate. Terrible chocolate.

And the Swiss? The Swiss are latecomers, Lindt and Nestle. They invented a thing called the conching machine. I don't really understand how that works, quite frankly. But what's the effect? It conches the chocolate and it makes it very smooth. But yeah, you're absolutely right to raise the issue of American chocolate. That is a huge puzzle because they've obviously got an enormous market,

but their chocolate is, I mean, it's abhorrent and abject, isn't it, Tom, without being rude to our members? Like their cheese. Like their cheese. Yeah, what's going on? Anyway, maybe our American listeners, if they're already left, will let us know in no uncertain terms. So anyway, that's the product.

That's what Cadbury are selling. But actually, the really interesting thing is where they are making it and what their workers are doing. Are they making it outside Birmingham? They are, Tom. They are. So they're still making it in Birmingham.

In 1878, they bought some rural farmland just outside the city through which a stream runs called the Bourne. Right. And they call this Bourneville. So French for town. Exactly. Calling things ville at this point is seen as quite an upmarket Frenchified thing to do.

Now, the Bourneville factory becomes the sort of physical embodiment of the Quaker principles that the family actually still espouse. So George Cadbury, who's now the big cheese in the family, he'd been a teacher in a school for working men in Birmingham. He was really into kind of liberal-minded campaigns in the sort of 1860s, 1870s. So against chimney sweeps. Against chimney sweeps, exactly, exactly. Lord Shaftesbury. Give people better conditions, better housing, clean things up.

I mean, it's part of that sort of Joseph Chamberlain era. Well, it's the kind of the high-minded Victorian spirit that people laugh at. Yeah. But we have not earned the right to laugh at because it's completely admirable. I couldn't agree with you more. So as an employer, I mean, he is obviously very paternalistic. But as you say, he's very admirable. He says, let's have bank holidays. Let's have a five and a half day working week.

I mean, this is a time when a lot of employers don't give people so much as a minute's break all week. He gives the workers more rights, better conditions, all that kind of thing. And then by the 1890s, he starts to go well beyond that and to become a real pioneer so what he does in the 1890s he buys 120 acres of land by the factory uh and he says i'm going to plan a model village bourneville and it will and i quote alleviate the evils of modern more cramped living conditions so that's 1893 they start rebuilding it in 1894 and by 1900 they do build things a lot more quickly than uh than we do in 1900 they have basically built this village out of nowhere it has more than 300 cottages and houses have you been to bourneville uh no i've never been have you not but i have read jonathan co's brilliant

novel bourneville yeah which is all about it right it's it's a really i mean if you were going to live in a suburb that's where you'd live but isn't this near where tolkien moves yeah he gets very upset about it and basically compares it to mordor but the weird thing is that tolkien should like it because like all of these sort of garden villages the 1890s it's quite shire like yeah the buildings are kind of you know late victorian edwardian vernacular english vernacular they're kind of hamster garden suburb yeah hamster exactly that they are kind of very bit william morrissey they're meant to be a little bit arts and craftsy so they're modern inside by the standards of the time but they are very much done in a kind of traditional english style you know it's it's a sort of it's

it's the country in the city as it were russin urbe. Exactly so. And it has a very, you know, 1900s kind of team spirit ethos, the age of the Boy Scouts and so on. So they have evening classes. And actually if you want to get a job at Bourneville in 1910 or something and you are a young person, one of the conditions of your employment is that you will have to go to evening classes and be improved. And how do we feel about that? I think it's brilliant.

That's what football clubs do, Tom, with their apprentices. They force them to study. I don't think they make them do Latin, but they make them do maths or something. Right. Quite right too. There are lots of games. There are games for women, interestingly, sports for women. And then they do them in work time.

So they have two half-hour sessions a week. They don't lose pay. They're paid to go to those sessions a week they don't lose pay they're paid to go to those sessions and they sort of play ball games and do gymnastics and stuff and the thinking is they'll be healthy but also they'll be better workers and obviously there's no opportunity to go and get drunk no exactly but you can go for a restorative chocolate yes you after the after your ball game so it's just like uh central america and yeah So it's just like Central America. Yeah, exactly. It's like the Olmecs.

AD-1000. Exactly. Ball games and chocolate. There is a company culture. They're one of the first companies, if not the first company, to have a genuine company culture. So they have the Bourneville Works magazine that's launched in 1902.

There is this sort of spirit that actually is easy. People sneer at it now, or they sniff at it and say it's very paternalistic. But the ethos of the magazine, I'll read you the quote. To promote what, for lack of a better word, we may describe as the Bourneville spirit. To foster comradeship and good fellowship.

And to add one more to the links binding together the community at Bourneville in mutual service. That is quite Tolkien, isn't it? It is a bit Tolkien, I think. It is quite Fellowship of the Ring. Yeah. And they deliver on a lot of these promises. So they have a benefit scheme. They have a pension scheme. So pensions, as our community manager, James Regan, would be the first person to say, were brought in famously by his hero, H. H. Asquith.

Actually, Bourneville got there first. So men had pensions in 1996. So even better than Asquith. I mean, that is high praise. That is the highest praise. Actually, Asquith is not a man who would have drunk chocolate, is he? No. A temperance town would not have been to his taste. No. And Bourneville still has. There's more than 20,000 people there.

Are you aware of the work of the actress Felicity Jones? I don't know. Was she Stephen Hawking's wife in that film with Eddie Redmayne? Didn't see it. She was also, we did an episode about Star Wars, she was the lead in Rogue One, which is an excellent film. Argu arguably the best of the recent star wars films she's from bourneville is she so there's a lovely fact wonderful so that's bourneville shall we get back to uh chocolate tom before we completely run out of time yes so the great news for people who uh like british chocolate is that uh as we approach the first world war britain leads the world unquestionably

great days in the chocolate so cadbury is now the world, unquestionably, in the chocolate. So Cadbury is now the world's biggest chocolate producer and is by far the biggest exporter because, of course, it has the empire. So we're exporting Cadbury chocolate, fries, round trees, all this stuff. Very, very exciting moment. In 1905, the most famous chocolate bar in the world is launched, Tom. That chocolate bar is, of course, the Dairy Milk. The interesting thing about the Dairy Milk is that the emphasis is very much on the milk and not on the chocolate.

So this is more Quaker. Yeah. You know, healthy glass of milk. The logo is still a glass of milk, I think, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And actually, the names they considered before they went for Dairy Milk were calling it either a Highland Milk Bar or a Dairy Maid Bar. Dairy Maid. And they went for Dairy Milk. Dairy Maid,. Dairy Maid. And they went for dairy milk.

Dairy Maid, I think, is an ice cream, an ice lolly. Is it? They had dairy made ice lollies. There's milk made ice lollies, aren't there? Yeah, maybe. I didn't like them. However, Tom, I'm sorry to say the Great War, you know my views on the Great War. Anyway, that's by the by.

It all went wrong and it was bad news for chocolate and for chocolate firms. Oh, specifically for British chocolate. Yeah. There's one bit of good news. Surely it's good news for American chocolate, isn't it? It is. Yeah. So British chocolate makers, they supplied the soldiers in their trenches with chocolate.

So you've got chocolate as part of your ration. And this was, I mean, Cadbury's did that. Cadbury. Cadbury did it. And they provided books and clothing for the troops as well. International competitors like Nestle and Lindt were completely frozen out of that for obvious reasons. What about Hershey's?

Hershey's. I mean, who would have Hershey's? Would you have Hershey's chocolate? I guess the GIs? They would, but they didn't turn up until 1918 or something, did they? So, I mean, that's by the by. It does lead to greater cooperation between the different Quaker companies. They've been talking about this actually since before the First World War. We're all Quakers. Kind of joining up. Let's join up and have one massive Quaker chocolate company.

They have massive shortages of milk and sugar. And so some of them are struggling. So fries, for example. By 1918, they're talking about, why don't we absolutely do this and merge into one big company? The Roundtree company says no. But the fries company say, yeah, let's do it. So in 1919, they form a company with the splendid name of the British Cocoa and Chocolate Company. It's not as catchy as Cadbury.

Well, okay. I mean, if that's your view, Tom, I'm clearly not going to persuade you. So Britain comes out of the war. And actually, I think in some ways you could say, this is the point at which chocolate is completely embedded tom in british national life to a degree that's exceptional i think it is exceptional actually i think there are more products in britain there are more consumers um there's a greater volume of production than anywhere else in the world and have they started adding bits of orange peel and yes fruit and nuts and you know you've all the bubbles into it yeah you're mad about the fruit and nuts and they absolutely are so you get uh the fruit and nut, the Bourneville fruit.

They make a dark fruit and nut before a milk one, interestingly. Oh, God, I love both. So the Bourneville fruit and nut is 1924. The milk fruit and nut is 1926. And the flake, when did you think flake was invented? 1932. 1920. And actually, there's some technical development that allows them to produce the flake,

but I don't understand what it is was it that thing that the it's not the conching no it wasn't conching no some other form of

flake machine was it Dutch I think the Dutch are this they're out of history by this point they've been not out of history so there's more products

and far far more people are eating chocolate so to give you an indication all that we've talked about actually was still a relatively elite thing and a middle class thing. So in 1900, only one in 30 families, households in Britain, ate chocolate regularly because it's expensive. And after the war, that's? By 1930, nine out of 10 families or households. And is that because lots of soldiers have got the habit of the trenches?

But also it's really cheap. It's just technological advance, you know, innovations mean it can be produced much more cheaply. The price of a dairy milk fell by 70% in the decade after the Great War. So sales go through the roof. And now really the companies can say we are genuinely mass national enterprises. So the Bourneville Works magazine that I quoted before in 1934, they say very proudly, at Bourneville, we cater for the man in the street, his wife and family, the poor man at the gate rather than the

rich man in his castle. So it is a kind of long process of both globalization and democratization. It is. A product once given to King Philip II is now being given to the ordinary folk of Birmingham,

their black country. It's a lovely story, Tom. And they say that history has no sense of progress. No. What nonsense. Well, you know what George Orwell said about chocolate

and the Great Depression? So people carried on eating chocolate in the Depression. Did it involve clogs? Effectively. Orwell said, and I think it's in The Roads where We Can Peer, he said,

It is quite likely that fish and chips, art silk stockings, tinned salmon, cut-priced chocolate, five two-ounce bars for sixpence. The movies, the radio, strong tea, and the football pools are between them averted revolution. Marvelous. Isn't it? It's lovely, Tom.

Jumpers for goalposts. So it was chocolates that we have to thank for there being no British Revolution in the 1930s. And isn't that a lovely thought? And on that bombshell, many thanks to Cadbury for sponsoring us and Dominic giving us the opportunity to do this episode on chocolate

that we've been wanting to do for ages. We've been craving it, Tom. Yeah. I have to say that doing this episode has definitely sharpened my desire to have some fruit and nut. What's your favourite? I'll go on the record now. If anyone from Cadbury is listening, just, I mean, you don't have to send them, but I do like a double decker.

Double decker. I'm a big fan of a double decker. With the nougat. I like the contrasting textures inside the double decker, Tom. So this is something that American chocolate does not get. Brilliant. Thank you very much for this wonderful tour through the history of chocolate. And thank you, everyone else, for listening.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.