Several weeks ago, I did some research on Moir's Malted Graham Sandwich Bar in an effort to recreate it. In the process, I stumbled upon a few theses that have been written on the Moir's candy plant that existed first in Halifax and later in Dartmouth. I printed off both to read at a later date and what better time to read them than now, while I'm on vacation! I started with "Femininity and the Factory: Women's Labouring Bodies in the Moir's Candy Plant, 1949-1970" by Margaret Anne Mulrooney (2012).
This thesis offers unique insight into the Moir's candy factory, as well as the gendered division of labour in this industry, through the personal experiences of eleven women who worked at the Moir's plant. I learned, not surprisingly, that in the post-war era, men held the higher paying jobs of skilled labour (making candy), while women held the lower paying jobs of unskilled labour (packing candy). With this dichotomy established in the introduction, I was surprised about ten pages later when I read that women were responsible for dipping prepared centres in chocolate.
According to Mulrooney, despite the availability of enrobing machines, "Moir's maintained the tradition of hand dipped chocolates well into the 1960s" because a machine was not capable of producing the same appearance (2012: 36). Mulrooney further observes, "Women were responsible for all of the hand dipping at Moir's and were paid at a piece rate" (2012: 37), which at one point was 17 cents for one tray of centres, though there is no indication of how many centres constituted a tray (2012: 45).
And so the neat dichotomy of skilled and unskilled labour, of men's and women's work, becomes messy. Mulrooney suggests that a continuum existed: "These women were considered skilled-labourers but their skill lay somewhere between the unskilled labour of a female packer and the highly skilled work of a male candy-maker" (2012: 37). I suspect the reality, however, is that women occupied positions requiring skilled labour, but they didn't get the recognition or the remuneration for their work that their male counterparts did.
In my opinion, dipping a centre in chocolate and achieving a perfect finished appearance requires far greater skill than making a centre by following a recipe.
Hand dipping chocolates requires superb dexterity and technical skills in addition to perfectly tempered chocolate, or it's a total disaster. And I should know -- I struggled with it during my chocolatier training and to this day I force myself to dip centres a few times a year just to keep up what little skill I have. I would need to be dipping centres on a daily basis to really get good at it -- just as these women did in the Moir's factory.
Of course there are many other interesting aspects of Mulrooney's research beyond discussion of skilled and unskilled labour, including the way in which some women skirted dress codes (pun intended) and engaged in pranks or sabotage to get relief from working conditions. While a gender study of chocolate production isn't in my future, there were many useful facts about the history of the Moir's chocolate factory peppered throughout the thesis, which I'm sure will prove to be valuable for a future project that I hope to share at some point in the future. How's that for a vague cliffhanger‽
Until then, do you remember the Moir's Pot of Gold chocolates? Which was your favourite?
No comments:
Post a Comment