Fact Friday: Yorkie

Did you know that the British chocolate bar ‘Yorkie’, is named after the city in which it was made…York?

Invented in 1976 by established confectionery firm Rowntree, the chunky milk chocolate ‘Yorkie’ was the company’s attempt to compete with Quaker-founded rivals Cadbury, and their long established Dairy Milk (created in 1905).

However, had it not been for the outbreak of World War II, the macho Yorkie could have been stuck with one of it’s original suggested names – ‘Rations’.

Concept design for ‘Rations’ milk chocolate bar

Creators Rowntree were aiming to create a substantial chocolate bar snack, primarily aimed at men. The name ‘Rations’ was a leading favourite as it was suggested that the thick, chocolate chunk bar would provide ample rations for fueling big, active and physically strong men whilst doing all their big, manly things. But the association with war-time austerity in the 1940’s and 1950’s caused the name to be re-considered – rationing didn’t end in Britain until 1954.

After the name ‘Rations’ was dismissed, and with names ‘Jones’, ‘Trek’ and ‘O’ Hara’ milk chocolate falling at the final hurdle, the decision was to name the bar after the company’s long heritage in their home city of York, eventually giving us the ‘Yorkie’.

Early designs for what would later become ‘Yorkie’ in 1976

Founded in Victorian Yorkshire in 1862, the firm took their name from Quaker businessman Henry Rowntree, who bought a cocoa-works in the city of York. But it wasn’t until he was joined by his brother Joseph Rowntree that the direction of the company expanded into confectionery, and the fortunes turned for the family-owned firm with the launch of ‘Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles’ almost twenty years later in 1881.

Then and Now – how the design of the final Yorkie has retained its original colour scheme to the present day

Fact Friday: The Marquis de Sade

Did you know that the infamous Marquis de Sade, Donatien Alphonse François, loved chocolate so much, that he demanded that it be brought to him while serving time in prison for his explicit exploits?

Marquis de Sade 1740-1814

In May 1779, the French writer, philosopher , aristocrat and sexual deviant, wrote to his wife, Renée-Pelagie de Montreuil, that the rations she had previously sent to him were desperately lacking in chocolate; here he begins to list his frustrations, starting with the fact that…

“…the sponge cake is not at all what I asked for. 1st, I wanted it iced all over…2nd I wanted to have chocolate inside as black as the Devil’s arse is from smoke, and there isn’t even the least trace of chocolate. I beg you to have it sent to me at the first opportunity….”

As black as the Devil’s arse is from smoke – that’s how I’m going to refer to all dark chocolate from now on!

Is this demon’s arse chocolatey enough?

Sade was well known for his violent and ‘sadistic’ sexual practices, numerous affairs, violent temper and blasphemous attitude – it’s where we get the term ‘sadism’ today. He spent the last thirteen years of his life in an insane asylum…I wonder if he ever received the chocolate cake he wanted?