Polly:
It's not June yet.
It's not June yet.
I was tickled by the image of Polly cycling to the village store so that she could surreptitiously leaf though the Nursing Times and snacking on a Mars bar. Mostly I was amused by the American candy making its way into casual usage. How wrong I was.Mars (also Mars bar) is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Inc. It was first manufactured in Slough, Berkshire in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the American Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced in the USA (not to be confused with the European version of Milky Way, which is a different confection and similar to the US 3 Musketeers).
Polly is nearly a pean to the genius of Laura Ashley. (Tell us true, Great Betty. Did you or did you not have an endorsement deal?). She had her start designing headscarves.
Audrey Hepburn inadvertently sparked the growth of one of the world's most successful fashion and home furnishing companies. Hepburn appeared alongside Gregory Peck in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, wearing a headscarf. As such a fashion icon, she instantly created a style that became popular around the globe.
The Ashleys' scarves quickly became successful with stores, retailing both via mail order and high street chains such as John Lewis - Bernard left his city job to print fabrics full time.Roses Have Thorns:
Therein we get Chaucer and Shakespeare quoted. Chaucer. I found this little nugget:His name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning shoemaker. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure, bourgeois, if not in the elite.
Wow. That's an enterprising relative.
Miss Mudd fancied herself a disciple of Constance Spry--an author, cook and florist.
...published the best-selling Constance Spry Cookery Book, thereby extending the Spry style from flowers to food. On 3 January 1960, she slipped on the stairs at Winkfield Place and died an hour later. Her last words were supposedly; 'someone else can arrange this.'
Oh, I do like that.
Betty Keira, I thought the same thing about Mars bars. BettyBrigid brought the family a big 2 pound tub of tiny candy bars from Ireland for Christmas. Mars, Milky Way, Snickers. I was thinking 'What a rip-off, they copied all our candy". Little did I realize, we are the borrowers! Here's what we got and lo and behold it comes in a reusable container! ha ha ha It must be unusual over there. There's an animated container guy on the label saying 'Reuse me! Frrrrreeze me I'm washable too'
ReplyDeleteCelebrations Tub
There were others in here that we don't have. Bounty, Galaxy, Malt Teasers, Galaxy Truffles.
Those were all yum!
Betty Barbara here--
ReplyDelete(Ahem) Betty Mary--Actually, Mars is a US origin company that spread to England in the 1930's
See HERE. (Cough, cough).
What is REALLY interesting is that Mars UK changed the candy specs to suit the local market, whilst keeping some of the original US names for the candies!!!
O Ho!! big laugh--my verification word is "belly"--how appropriate for a discussion of CANDY!!
Mars started in Washington State!?! I had no idea. I wish I'd known this last year when my youngest was taking Washington State History...I'm sure he would have been more excited about that than some of the more prosaic companies he researched.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link and info. I'm not sure I get it. So does the US company run the English and Irish factories and/or just take the profits?
ReplyDeleteBrigie did say their chocolate taste better. For some sweeter is better, but I couldn't really taste the difference.
I kept trying to get a funny food word, but I only get nonsense. Belly was a fun one!
One of the moms at the pre-school where I take Kidlet 3 is British and when she says our chocolate is 'rubbish' I find it so difficult to be offended. That accent is just so adorable!
ReplyDeleteBetty Barbara here---
ReplyDeleteWell, it takes all kinds....
I generally find Cadbury to be waaaay too sweet. So I suspect I wouldn't like Mars UK's offerings for the same reason. Your Brit mom is probably dissing Hershey's or Dove.
But she may have a small point-my favorite brand is Green & Black's, an organic chocolate group that got their start in the UK. Their 70% cocoa dark chocolate bar is just yummy.
Perhaps you should offer her something from Seattle Chocolates or maybe Scharffen Berger.
Oh noes! Betty Barbara is slipping into a chocolate coma.........
You all may be amused to know that LOTS of money has been spent litigating this issue, in what's been called the European Chocolate War -- all about how chocolate is made and what constitutes "chocolate" versus something too adulterated (by milk solids, sugar, etc.) to be considered chocolate.
ReplyDeleteHere's a snippet from a learned paper on the subject:
The so-called European Chocolate War centered in part on controversy over using the percentage of cocoa solids as a definition of chocolate quality, or even as the definition of chocolate. This decades-long disagreement consisted of two issues: whether vegetable fats other than cocoa butter CBEs, or cocoa butter equivalents) could be allowed in chocolate, and what the appropriate percentages are of milk and cocoa solids in milk
chocolate. Countries lined up on either side of the conflict based on the practices of their predominant chocolate manufacturer(s). Quality chocolate as defined by manufacturers and consumers is thus based on arguments concerning not just place identity, but national identity.