Chocolate Trading Cards

This week I continued reading about Moirs chocolate factory with a MA thesis titled "Much More Than Chocolate": A Mosaic of Identity in Moirs Advertising, 1830 to 2007 written by Holly Ruth Hanes (2020). This thesis contains a number of photographs of Moirs chocolate boxes and advertising, as well as a list of product names. Indeed, it was the appendix of this thesis that led me to discovering the proper name of the Malted Graham Sandwich Bar that I made a few months ago in an attempt to recreate a nostalgic chocolate bar from a friend's memory. 

The content of the thesis made me think of a post by the Newfoundland & Labrador Pharmacy Museum last February (2022), where they found an old Moirs chocolate box in their collection. This one employs the bird imagery that was so prevalent according to Hanes (p.49). You can easily see the appeal of a box of Happiness. (And if you ask me, chocolate is good medicine, so it's entirely appropriate that this was found in a pharmacy museum...)

While the history of the Moirs company presented in Hanes' thesis is interesting, what really caught my attention was the practice of including trading or collectors' cards in boxes of chocolate and/or chocolate bars. This was a common practice across the industry and Moirs used imagery that reflected a regional identity, like nautical themed scenes in the 1910s and 1920s. Souvenir post cards were also inserted in boxes -- they were trendy at the time and "consumers bought into the giveaway mentality" (p. 34). 

This demonstrates, of course, that humans haven't changed much in the last 100+ years. We all love free stuff. Remember getting toys and DVDs in cereal boxes? I think I still have my copy of The Mask. Today, stickers are commonly added to art boxes and products, and have a similar collectible status. 

Collections are an interesting human practice. I've been thinking about that more and more in the last few years, and most recently on my trip home. Through my life, I've had many different collections -- and they mattered and had meaning at different points in time. A stamp and coin collection kicked off by a few Newfoundland samples of each owned by my grandfather. A collection of ceramic cats inspired both by my love of cats and the collecting practices of an aunt. A collection of lapel pins spurred by an international Girl Guide camp that I attended where trading occurred. Two collections of china dishes, one pattern I associate with my maternal grandmother and one pattern that was owned by my paternal grandmother. 

But what do you do with these collections years later when you've changed and they no longer have the same relevance in your life? (Note: I'm talking about coins and lapel pins, not china dishes. The china dishes bring significant joy to my life every time I use them for a dinner party with friends.)

That's a big question for a Sunday morning, so I'm not actually seeking answers and I'm certainly not offering any, though you should feel free to comment if you have thoughts. But I do love the concept of surprise post cards or trading cards in a box of chocolates that can be mailed to a loved one or collected and traded with friends. 

What have you collected throughout your life?  

Skilled Labour

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. 

If you've ever tried to coat a centre of any size, shape, or texture in chocolate using dipping forks, you know that this definitely requires skill. Skill to get an even coating, skill to tap off the excess chocolate, skill to have the coated centre release from the tines of the dipping fork, skill to place it neatly on a tray, skill to have as little "foot" as possible, skill to not have marks from the dipping fork on the bottom of the chocolate. 

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? 

Chocolate Memories

When I started my professional chocolatier program several years ago, there was a great deal of discussion about fine chocolate in contrast to commercial chocolate, as well as the development of taste and preferences. As I planned to host a chocolate tasting, I remember posting on Facebook and inviting my friends to tell me their favourite chocolate of all time. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of posts were about commercial chocolate. Interestingly, though, many were memories of discontinued candy bars from childhood. It was a fascinating discussion. 

While I recognized some of the candy bars referenced, there were several that were new to me, so I searched for pictures and descriptions of many of them online. One that stood out was a comment about a 4 Flavours bar. 

My research revealed that it was a Neilson creation, sort of like a Caramilk bar, but with four different fillings -- vanilla, caramel, chocolate, and bordeaux. Having no idea what "bordeaux" referred to, I researched that as well and discovered it was a butterscotch flavour. Fascinated by this, I ordered a chocolate bar mold and began planning how to recreate the experience for my friend for Christmas. I was thrilled with the results (but it will probably be a very long time before I do it again, given the work associated with making all of those fillings and keeping them at the right working temperature). 

More recently I've had discussions about a particular chocolate-coated graham cracker candy bar -- first with a friend at work and then again with a cousin on Facebook (completely unrelated and in a time span of about 2 months). 

What was this mysterious treat? Described as two graham squares with a mocha-coloured, cream-type filling in the centre, covered in chocolate, and sold two pieces in one package, it was reportedly delicious. But try as I might, my googling didn't lead to any images of such a bar. And, frankly, this seemed strange to me. Until we figured out the actual name of the bar.

Graham Bar? Graham Square? Graham Sandwich? Graham Sandwich!

Malted Graham Sandwich Bar to be exact. They were manufactured at the Moirs chocolate factory in Dartmouth, which closed in 2007. I found the full product name in the appendix of a master's thesis on Moirs advertising (Thank you Holly Hanes!). Sadly, the thesis didn't have any images associated with this bar and, given that it seems to have been a regional product, it isn't all that surprising that none of us have yet found photographs of one or its packaging online. 

Now, as someone who never saw or tasted a Graham Sandwich, there are a lot of unknowns. I don't have a good sense of how big they were or how thick the cream between the two graham crackers was.  I'm not sure if they were perfect squares or rectangles. And I certainly don't know how malty the malted filling was or what sort of texture and consistency it had (beyond the description that it was a cream). Nevertheless, the flavour combination sounds divine and my interest has been piqued! 

The truth is, I can't help but wonder if this should be my next retro candy bar re-creation.

What do you think? Should I make a modern, hand-crafted version of the Malted Graham Sandwich Bar? 

Leave a comment below! And if you remember this sweet treat, then please share your memories of it.