Mr. Booth further states that starch other than that naturally present in the cacao bean, and cacao shell in powder form, should be absolutely excluded from any article which is to be sold under the name of "chocolate."
[CHAPTER X]
THE CONSUMPTION OF CACAO
The Kernels that come to us from the Coast of Caraqua, are more oily, and less bitter, than those that come from the French Islands, and in France and Spain they prefer them to these latter. But in Germany and in the North (Fides sit penes autorem) they have a quite opposite Taste. Several People mix that of Caraqua with that of the Islands, half in half, and pretend by this Mixture to make the Chocolate better. I believe in the bottom, the difference of Chocolates is not considerable, since they are only obliged to increase or diminish the Proportion of Sugar, according as the Bitterness of the Kernels require it.
The Natural History of Chocolate, R. Brookes, 1730.
The war has caused such a disturbance that the statistics for the years of the war are difficult to obtain. For many years the German publication, the Gordian, was the most reliable source of cacao statistics, and so far we have nothing in England sufficiently comprehensive to replace it, although useful figures can be obtained from the Board of Trade returns of imports into Great Britain, from Mr. Theo. Vasmer's reports which appear from time to time in The Confectioners' Union and elsewhere, from Mr. Hamel Smith's collated material in Tropical Life, and from the reports of important brokers like Messrs. Woodhouse. In 1919 the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute gave a very complete résumé of cacao production as far as the British Empire is concerned.
Great Britain.
Since 1830 the consumption of cacao in the British Isles has shown a great and continuous increase, and there is every reason to believe that the consumption will easily keep pace with the rapidly growing production. One effect of the war has been to increase the consumption of cocoa and chocolate. Many thousands of men who took no interest in "sweets" learned from the use of their emergency ration that chocolate was a very convenient and concentrated foodstuff.