CHOCISM

A simile in which life, or an aspect of life, is compared to a box of chocolates. The best known chocism is still the one from the 1994 movie Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”. But this hasn’t stopped journalists, commentators and bloggers coming up with their own versions, encompassing a range of observations from the pessimistic: “Life is like a box of chocolates, the best ones are half-eaten”; the anti-romantic: “Men are like chocolates, you never know when you’re going to get a nut”; the matrimonial: “Marriage is like a box of chocolates, you have to squeeze a few bottoms to make sure you like what you’re getting”; to the political: “Like a box of chocolates – you never know when you’re going to get a fudge”. Because life is a box of chocolates: we are born when the box is opened; we live as we choose our way through the assortment; and we die when the box is empty.

THE MILK TRAY MAN

Conceived as a typically English take on the James Bond character the Milk Tray Man, who embodied elements of  courtly love from  a long lost age, went from being an ironic figure of fun to an iconic romantic hero in just one generation. In the series of TV ads that ran from 1967 to 2003, he battled sharks, raging torrents and avalanches etc. to bring his lady a box of Cadbury’s famous milk chocolate assortment, and in so doing proved his worth through ardour, valour, and unwavering devotion.

But it wasn’t just these brave and self-denying actions that made him so admirable to women, made him such a legend among men, and ensured his mark was firmly fixed in British popular culture. It was also because he wore a black roll-neck sweater at a time when such a garment signified cool, elegant sophistication and, on the right man, emanated sleek, panther-like magnetism.

Now, any man performing acts of derring-do while dressed in black, especially where chocolates are involved, is affectionately dubbed a Milk Tray Man in his honour. Julian Thompson, for instance, formerly a brigade commander during the Falklands conflict, recounted one such episode in his autobiography. Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister, was attending an exercise involving the Special Boat Service who had been tasked with storming a practice ‘enemy’ ship. The exercise having passed off with great success culminated in one black-clad operative stepping forward, unzipping a wetsuit still dripping with water, and presenting the Prime Minister with a box of the Cadbury’s assortment. So touched was Thatcher with the gesture, being a keen admirer of the fictional man in black, that she insisted on keeping the chocolates for herself despite attempts by an aide to take them off her.

Many chocophiles claim the Milk Tray Man to be a modern version of the Swiss mercenary in Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. When one looks at their technique there are certainly some  interesting similarities:

• The Milk Tray ads featured a daredevil action hero who risked life and limb to deliver a box of chocolates, and in Arms and the Man the Swiss mercenary risks being killed by enemy soldiers to hide in a young lady’s bedchamber.
• In the ads, the box was often delivered surreptitiously under cover of darkness, and in Arms and the Man the mercenary enters the house at night through an upstairs window.
• In the ads, the Milk Tray Man leaves behind an enigmatic calling card, suggesting the lady would have known who he was, or would have wanted to know; and in the play the mercenary first appears as a stranger, then as an admirer, and finally as a suitor, with chocolates being the catalyst keeping the chemistry of the relationship going. “To my last hour I shall remember those three chocolate creams”, he exclaims at their first parting.

Other contenders include Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or at least the Mr Darcy in the Keira Knightley version. In this one, Mr Darcy bursts into Elizabeth’s bedroom at night, just as the Milk Tray Man would have done, to deliver an important missive. In the novel, Elizabeth acknowledges Darcy’s chivalry when she says he is “the most generous of his sex”. And the description Mr Darcy – a bit sulky is, presciently, an anagram of “Cadbury’s Milk Tray”.

CHOCOGYNY

Chocogyny is the description of women in terms of chocolate – smooth, soft-centred, sweet-hearted, etc. – especially where the description comes wrapped in Milk Tray associations. The actress Natalie Portman once described herself as more of a chocolate bar than a hard sex symbol. June Brown — Dot Cotton in the BBC’s Eastenders — said when she was young she had lips like Mayfair chocolates, i.e. as luscious as rose crèmes. In April 2012 the Daily Mail described Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, as a Hazelnut Whirl in the chocolate box of life. And American model Estelle Reyna became the marketing inspiration for kitchen appliance company Le Gourmet because of her “luscious pout”, “curvaceous body”, and “chocolate brown bedroom eyes”.

Chocogyny has long been mined for inspiration by advertisers. In the 1960’s, TV ads for Dairy Box portrayed the assortment as wholly characteristic of the “cool blonde” advertising them. “You’ll find her on the pure white box,” the creamy voiceover murmured, “as smooth and as beautiful as the milk chocolates inside it: made with almonds from Majorca, brown sugar from the Caribbean, and ripe English strawberries”.

“Choose all this, and more,” the succulent invitation continued to ooze, “from blonde, silky, cool, milky, Dairy Box”.

In a 1979 ad for Fry’s Chocolate Cream, a man saying goodbye to his girlfriend as she was about to leave on the Orient Express, waxed lyrically about how the chocolate bar would always remind him of her: slim, dark, sophisticated, yet underneath it all a soft heart and a sweetness that would haunt him forever.

In the interest of spreading this definition far and wide, and of uncovering lots of interesting examples of chocogyny, readers are very welcome to add more in the comments section.

 

 

VOTIVE CHOCOLATES

Chocolates infused with significance and meaningfulness, to the extent that they have the power to be used in rituals. Votive chocolates can be of any brand or variety, though some find Holy Chocolate to be an obvious choice, perhaps in acknowledgement of chocolate’s role in ancient religious ceremonies. Developed by Father Stan Smith, a Californian entrepreneur and ordained Orthodox priest, the wrappers of Holy Chocolate are inscribed with a Psalm specially chosen to match the chocolate’s personality. Some chocolates become votive for more personal reasons. Seven years after the death of Henry Tennant, the second son of Lord Glenconner, in 1990, friends gathered at the family castle in Scotland for a celebration of his life, finishing off with scattering of chocolates – of which Henry was a great lover – around the base of his memorial tree.

CHOCOLANTIC

An image of chocolatey opulence or extravagance. A padded, silk-lined Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk filled to the brim with Debauve et Gallais chocolates, for example; or a beribboned coffret of ganaches delivered by horse-drawn Landau; or a white-gloved butler polishing after-dinner mints before they are served; or this, from a 1970’s Lindt advert: “Her Ladyship has auctioned off her world famous assortment of jewellery, and now keeps her Lindt Assortment in the wall safe behind the Picasso,” twenty years before Godiva used the theme to advertise the their expensive pralines were so precious they should be weighed in carats.

 

CHOCOGYNATE

To make a statement of chocogyny (the description of women in terms of chocolate). A statement that not only describes, for some, a woman’s inherent chocolateyness but positively affirms it. A few examples:

• Eloquence resides less in a woman’s tone of voice and choice of words than in the way her lips move when eating a chocolate.
• Good chocolates, like women, will always find a way.
• Like women, every chocolate has its depths to one who truly sees.
• No man is an island but some women are rich, cocoa-dusted truffles.
• Sinful caramels, muffled truffles, erotic crèmes – ah, the women in men’s most propitious dreams.
• Is there any other way a woman may be more profitably engaged than in eating her way through a box of expensive chocolates?
• In their laughter some women have the sound of handmade truffles tumbling like lottery balls.
• Sometimes one feels, subtly, a woman’s presence to be like a heart-shaped box of Godiva pralines about to be opened.
• There is always a woman, lips slightly parted, anticipating another ganache sensation.
• When a woman has a Foucher Art Deco chocolate box on her mind even the gods is afraid to put obstacles in her path.
• Is there any truth in the observation that some women have chocolate-flavoured hormones?
• The way her light brown tresses blow in the breeze, one would say that silken caramels have found the secret of immortality.
• It is not an insult to say that some women, like some adjectives, are made to be paired with pralines.
• The way to a woman’s heart is through her chocolates. Through, as in the way light shines through a stained glass window.

CHOCOGEOLOGY

The study of the earth’s chocolate-bearing rocks and the processes by which they are formed. One source of “naturally occurring chocolate” lies beneath the historic market town of Kikby Lonsdale in Cumbria, England. According to geological information on the mine’s website, seams of chocolate were created when ancient cocoa was compressed between two tectonic plates. Liquified by heated underground water the chocolate bubbles up to the surface where it is collected by faeries, who also dig it out in its solid form. From here it is supplied to the shop above, called Chocolat, where customers can buy freshly chiseled pieces of white, milk or dark chocolate, as well as Belgian chocolates specially imported by the shop’s owners. Interesting features of the workings include ancient choclactites and choclagmites, formed where water runs slowly through the chocolate substrate. The mine has been open to visitors since 2003 and is reached by a series of very steep steps at the back of the shop. Although one can’t always see the faeries at work one can hear the sound of chipping coming from underground, proving the mine is still in operation.

CHOCONY

An irony involving a contrary juxtaposition of chocolate events or situations. Fans of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat point to the enjoyable chocony of the Catholic Institute of Paris being situated between two of the city’s best chocolatiers: Jean-Charles Rochoux at number 16 Rue d’Assas and Christian Constant at number 37. Another is the one of George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for, of all the actors who played James Bond, it was Lazenby who came closest in spirit to the Milk Tray Man – that daredevil secret agent and chocolate deliverer based on the 007 character. Not only was Lazenby’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service filmed in Switzerland, the spiritual home of milk chocolate; not only did the Swiss locations allow Lazenby to demonstrate his prowess on skis, just like the Milk Tray Man; not only was he frequently mistaken for the Milk Tray Man; but Lazenby actually took part in a TV ad for chocolate –  just that it wasn’t for Cadbury’s but Fry’s (still the same company though).

CHOCOFORM

A chocoform is an object molded in chocolate which, though serving little practical purpose, is admired for its realism and visual impact.

Popular with many fans of the game are chocolate chess sets, with dark and white pieces made so they can be eaten when the game is over – i.e. after “choc mate” has been declared. Equally popular are chocolate tool sets replete with hammers, spanners, pliers, scissors, pincers and screwdrivers. The most lifelike of these are dusted with cocoa powder to give them an added rusted look. One can also find very realistic chocolate keyboards, CD’s, coffee cups, spoons, handguns, trainers, stilettos, flowers and lipsticks

American company US Elite make chocolate ammo, comprising military-style tins containing 20 target-rich rounds of .50-calibre milk chocolate bullets. Perfect for chocolateers; even better for occasions when the bullet has to be bitten; and best for giving new meaning to the expression death by chocolate. Also from the States, but far less deadly, come the art duo Mary & Matt who do a chocolate bar in which the squares are replica Scrabble tiles. With bars like these, War and Peace never tasted so good, words like delicious really are delicious, and the joys of truffles, ganaches and pralines can be spelt out in all their luscious glory.

At the forefront of designing ingenious chocoloforms are Japanese artists like Oki Sato and his collaborator Tsujiguchi Hironobu, who create chocolate pencils so realistic you could almost write with them. At the Tokyo Chocolate exhibition in 2007 the chocoforms on display were truly outstanding. They included a miniature chocolate city (actually a 3-D map of Tokyo); a gramophone that played chocolate records; an anatomically correct chocolate heart, presumably for the chocophile in all of us; ballet pumps that looked far too good to eat; and individually cut chocolate keys for unlocking – what? – the secrets of the universe? And let’s not forget Hong Kong artist Toby Ng, who won awards in 2009 and 2012 for his amazing, and eminently lickable, British postage stamps.

CHOCOLEPSY

Chocolepsy is the yearning to have, or to be near, chocolates. Charlie Bucket in Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is probably the world’s most famous chocolept, but in 2002 when London’s upmarket grocer Fortnum & Mason placed an advert for a new chocolate buyer, someone willing to travel the world to select the best chocolate for the company’s discerning clientele, they were inundated with over 3,000 applications, including one from the personnel manager’s nine year-old daughter. This incident, together with the enormous popularity of visitor centres such as Cadbury World in Bournville, and Hershey’s Chocolate World in Pennsylvania, not to mention the two movie versions of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, illustrate just how many chocolepts there are in the world. We should also mention standard-bearers like Mary Tetley from Wales who, in typical chocolept fashion, went on a three-month tour of Europe to sample the best of French, Belgian and Swiss chocolates, after inheriting £10,000 and a letter telling her to follow her dream. On her return, she opened her own chocolate shop, thus fulfilling an ambition she had cherished  since she was a little girl. All proof, if proof were needed, of the New York Times’ assertion that the world is flat and chocolatiers want to coat it.