The Rich (But Not Too Dark) History of Milk Chocolate

If I asked you what you the meaning of life is, what would your answer be? To the select few, the answer is quite obvious:  chocolate. Maybe that’s not quite how the question is actually supposed to be answered, with other answers like 42* or [insert your name here] on the line, but in my opinion, chocolate is pretty much it. I mean, the probability is high that you have experienced that delicious, creamy, smooth taste of chocolate dissolving on your tongue, a sensation that is topped by almost nothing. You’ve had all the way from the low life, extra sweet, almost not-chocolate chocolate that the typical consumer dubs chocolate today, to the expensive, sumptuous chocolate that you generally find on your exotic travels. (Or just in a high quality chocolate shop…) And as a fellow chocolatier, I understand your struggles of lasting a week without this amazing dessert by your side, in any way, shape or form.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I am just a little bit of a chocoholic. According to the significant accumulation and consumption of chocolate in my household, and the suspicious chocolate wrappers littering my room, I am a major chocolate connoisseur. My favorite style of chocolate is a really dark milk chocolate, (or a light dark chocolate, if you prefer that terminology). An estimated consumption of chocolate in my normal week is about a quarter of a pound, give or take a couple ounces. Because of this natural affinity for chocolate I have, I believed that I had an obligation to find out some of the rich history of milk chocolate. Hopefully, if you’re reading this blog, you have a similar bond with the delicious entity, so you will enjoy learning the history.

Unless you are the rare person who actually knows how milk chocolate blinked into existence, you are most likely ignorant in the matter. Do you think those wrapped and packaged Hershey bars just fell out of the sky and hit Milton Hershey on the head? I think not. And eating chocolate without knowing these details is like celebrating a goal in soccer without knowing who assisted, which is quite simply unacceptable. Therefore, I believe that it is my duty to enlighten those who love chocolate the way it is today, by acknowledging the brilliant people who shaped this wonderful victual. I would begin the extensive history at its very beginning, with the Aztecs and Mayans, but technically this blog is supposed to be about milk chocolate, so let's fast forward a bit, to when milk chocolate was first brought into the waiting arms of our world.

Milk chocolate began its journey with a man named Daniel Peter. Mr. Peter was a very noteworthy man, so I’ll begin with a brief background. His life began in the humble village of Vevey, which is located in Switzerland. Daniel Peter worked in the candle making industry as his first career, but when the oil lamp superseded the candle, demand fell, so Daniel Peter had to find some other way to make money. Therefore, he decided to go into the chocolate business. (There are some nit-picky details about how exactly he went into the chocolate world, but they are not particularly relevant to this blog post. Go look them up yourself. Use this link to find the whole story, if you feel so inclined.) The chocolate world, at that time, was mostly dominated by other chocolate giants, so he had to find some different way to draw customers. Mr. Peter reasoned that a new product should do the trick.

Around the time that Daniel Peter joined the chocolate market, he had also formed a friendship with Henri Nestlé, who worked as a baby food producer at that point in time. Henri Nestlé had been working with something he called “milky flour” to use as an ingredient in his baby food. (Remember that: “milky flour.” It is quite essential to the creation of milk chocolate.) It was as Nestlé was working with this “milky flour,” that Peter had a light bulb moment. He came up with the idea of uniting milk and chocolate into one delicious whole.

Sadly, his light bulb moment did not tell him how to make the milk chocolate, just that he should. Therefore, Peter spent the next seven years of his life struggling to make his new product. He used much trial-and-error, often experimenting during the day, and researching late into the night, trying to reach a solution to his problems. The principal problem that Peter faced was that the milk and chocolate solids did not combine as smoothly as one might hope. In fact, they didn’t really combine at all. The water in the milk caused the chocolate to fall apart and grow mildew, which simply ruined the batch of perfectly good dark chocolate.

Eventually, Peter had the idea of using condensed milk in the chocolate. This way worked better, but still had some dicey results. Finally, (although I think that Peter should have reached this conclusion sooner) Daniel Peter decided to give Nestlé’s “milky flour” (completely evaporated milk) a try. He experimented with that idea some, and eventually found the desired result. In 1876, milk chocolate finally emerged into this world. This first product was called “Gala Peter,” with Gala meaning “from the milk,” which is simply a shout-out to the predominant factor in making it special. (If you have survived this long in my brief, not-so-brief, history of milk chocolate, I hope you have gleaned at least a little information on your (should be, if not is your) favorite food.)

Also, in case you couldn’t figure this out, milk chocolate went in multiple different directions after Peter worked his magic, such as ways you probably know very well, like any milk chocolate company you can think of right now. This expansion of the novel idea of milk chocolate spread quickly, aided by the equipment of the second industrial revolution. The machinery enabled milk chocolate of all varieties to be produced quickly and efficiently, leading to the dissemination of milk chocolate all over the world. Milk chocolate has changed drastically since it first opened its eyes, but every piece of milk chocolate can trace its roots back to its ancestor, Gala Peter, the first milk chocolate bar.

Now, the next time you go eat some chocolate, try to honor Daniel Peter and his legacy by savoring every last bite.

*Obviously, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and anyone in their right mind, “42” is the true meaning of life (besides chocolate, of course).

Link to Table of Contents

Sources

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/MilkChocolate.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Peter

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Peter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate

http://www.chocolate-history.co.uk/milk-chocolate.htm

http://www.howstuffworks.com/how-chocolate-is-made7.htm

Image Links

Chocolate #1

Chocolate #2

Chocolate #3

Gala Peter