Disagreements over chocolate are commonplace: some people prefer milk, some dark. Family members and friends may well argue over who gets to eat the nation’s favourite Quality Street (according to a 2021 article in the Daily Telegraph it is the purple one ) and who is lumbered with the least favourite (the orange creme according to the same article). But you wouldn’t normally expect such differences to be described as a ‘war’.
However, in the endnote to his latest novel Bournville Jonathan Coe refers to the fact that 11 years previously he had worked with a French director and screenwriter Julie Gavras on the script of a film called The Chocolate War. The film never came to fruition, but the idea behind it was to use the European Union’s passionate discussions about what constitutes chocolate – and countries’ differing views – as a metaphor for the history of the European Union and different countries’ perceptions of it; even more relevant in the light of the Brexit vote. An article by Coe from The Guardian with a longer discussion of the envisaged film can be read here .
The EU chocolate wars are a thread running through Bournville which, like Coe’s loose trilogy of novels – The Rotters’ Club, The Closed Circle and Middle England – that I blogged about previously, can be described as a state of the nation novel, a novel that is interested in the social and political questions of the time in which it is set.
Bournville, which was published in 2022, spans a period of seventy-five years, from the end of the Second World War in 1945, to the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020. At the heart of the novel is Mary, 11 years old when the Second World War comes to an end in 1945 and 86 when she dies alone as a result of Covid restrictions in 2020. Coe’s focus on a character and the different generations of her family is played out against a larger backdrop of social and political changes in Britain over this 75 year period.
The novel is set for the most part in Birmingham – where Coe grew up – and specifically in Bournville, a suburb on the southwest side of the city which was originally developed in 1879 as a ‘model village’ for employees at the Cadbury factory. Model villages – communities developed by industrialists and business owners to house their workers – were particularly popular in the 19th century. They provided workers with decent housing near to the factory or business, and their development was often motivated by the employers’ Christian beliefs and an understanding of their responsibility for their workers. The Cadbury family, who set up the Cadbury factory to make cocoa and drinking chocolate – as an alternative to the sinful temptation of alcohol – and later chocolate bars, were Quakers whose goal, as Coe notes, was ‘the amelioration of the conditions of the working class and labouring population in and around Birmingham by the provision of improved dwellings, with gardens and opened spaces to be enjoyed therewith‘.
Disagreements about chocolate are enacted on both a small and large scale in the novel. They first appear at an early point – the 1966 section of the novel, the focus of which is England’s victory over Germany in the World Cup final – when two of Geoffrey’s (Mary’s husband) German relatives come to the UK for a visit: Volker and his son Lothar. Mary’s three young sons – Jack, Martin and Peter – having been given a bar of Bournville (a dark chocolate made by Cadbury’s) by their grandmother, give some to Lothar, in return for a taste of some German chocolate that he has brought with him. Jack tells Lothar that “‘English chocolate is the best in the world. And Cadbury’s make the best chocolate in England“‘ . When Lothar’s response is less than enthusiastic – ‘”it’s a little bit greasy for my taste. But it’s all right, I suppose“‘ – Jack retaliates in his response to the German milk chocolate: ‘His face goes bright red and he spits the half-consumed square of chocolate out onto the floor of the shelter. …”Ugh!” he cries. “Horrible! Revolting! It tastes like … like… Well, I don’t know what it tastes like. It’s the most horrible thing in the world. Are you trying to poison us?”
It is perhaps no surprise that, later in the novel, Jack is the one brother who votes ‘Leave’ in the Brexit referendum of 2016!
Later on, the chocolate wars are enacted on a larger scale. Jack’s brother Martin works for Cadbury’s and spends much of his time in Brussels trying to persuade the EU and other countries that Dairy Milk and Bournville – the staple bars produced by Cadbury’s – are entitled to be called ‘chocolate’. The argument voiced against the Cadbury bars is that they contained insufficent cocoa butter and too much vegetable fat – a result of limited supplies of cocoa butter during the war. Even when rationing came to an end the recipe didn’t change as British palates had adjusted to the new taste.
Whilst Martin is sympathetic to the British – and his employer’s – cause where chocolate is concerned, he is nonetheless presented as an enthusiastic Europhile who is keen for the UK to be more closely integrated with Europe and who believes the chocolate wars are simply a ‘stumbling block‘ along the way. He finds though that his enthusiasm is at odds with the attitude of many of the British observers and journalists in Brussels, in particular with a ‘pack member [who] had a wild mop of blonde hair and drove around Brussels in a red Alfa Romeo.. and had decided to survive the tedious business of reporting from Brussels for The Daily Telegraph by treating the whole thing as a joke, by playing loose and fast with the facts and spinning every story as though the workings of the European Parliament were part of an elaborate conspiracy to thwart the British at every turn‘. And we all know how that turned out…
But Martin is right to believe that the chocolate wars were simply a blip: in 1999 a new directive was signed that permitted six fats to be officially included in chocolate and allowed Cadbury’s Dairy Milk to be sold in Europe as ‘family milk chocolate‘.
On the other hand, though, his hope for closer harmonisation between the UK and Europe hasn’t gone quite as well…
To celebrate British chocolate – and its acceptance by the EU – I made some cupcakes using Bournville, the plain chocolate produced by Cadbury’s. Bournville’s 36% cocoa content is broadly equivalent to the cocoa content of much European milk chocolate, which probably explains why Bournville is described as plain rather than dark chocolate. If you want your cupcakes more chocolate-y (but less British) replace the Bournville with dark chocolate.
BOURNVILLE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
Ingredients (makes 12):
For the cakes
125g unsalted butter
100g Bournville chocolate, broken into pieces
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g self-raising flour (or 145g plain flour + 1 teaspoon baking powder)
For the decoration:
125g icing sugar, sifted
125g very soft unsalted butter
6 squares of Bournville chocolate very finely grated
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C / fan 160C / Gas mark 4.
Line a 12-bun muffin tin with muffin cases.
Put the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and place over a medium heat to melt. When nearly melted add the chocolate, leave for a couple of minutes to begin softening and then remove from the heat and stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate have completely melted and combined into a smooth mixture. Add the eggs, salt and sugar and stir together with a wooden spoon. Finally stir in the flour (and baking powder if using).
Spoon the cake batter into the muffin cases in the tin and bake for 25 minutes.
Whilst the cakes cool, make the icing. Beat together the icing sugar and butter until creamy and smooth. When the cakes are cool ice them – I am no icing expert, so I just splodge a generous teaspoon on each cake and use a palette knife to smooth it over the top. But if you prefer to pipe on your icing, then be my guest. Finally sprinkle the grated chocolate over the top. Enjoy!
