Chocolate

“‘The waterfall is most important!’ Mr Wonka went on. ‘It mixes the chocolate! It churns it up! It pounds it and beats it! It makes it light and frothy! No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall! But it is the only way to do it properly! The only way! And do you like my trees?’ he cried, pointing with his stick. ‘And my lovely bushes? Don’t you think they look pretty? I told you I hated ugliness! And of course they are all  eatable! All made of something different and delicious! And do you like my meadows? Do you like my grass and my buttercups? The grass you are standing on, my dear little ones, is made of a new kind of soft, minty sugar that I’ve just invented! I call it swudge! Try a blade! Please do! It’s delectable!’”

There is something inherently evocative about chocolate. Simultaneously sweet, exciting and seductive, chocolate is an obsession that follows most of us throughout our lives and this is reflected in our literature. Said to induce the same endorphin rush as falling in love, chocolate finds a delicious home in both children’s and adult literature. From Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory to Joanne Harris’ Chocolat, chocolate denotes a thrilling return to the time when the sweetshop was your own personal wonderland. 

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is one of those ubiquitous children’s books that positions itself firmly in the libraries of children and adults alike. In the novel however, Roald Dahl does something quite strange, managing to create a world that revolves around chocolate, (the people that occupy the town of Charlie Bucket are obsessed with chocolate and the products of Willy Wonka), and also creating the most amazing chocolate factory ever to exist in the realms of imagination however the two heroes of the story, Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka himself have a special kind of reverence for chocolate. In both of these characters Roald Dahl has created characters that not only reject eating chocolate solely for pleasure, but bestow it with an almost religious importance, something that needs to be studied in order to provide others with pleasure. 

“How I love my chocolate factory,’ said Mr Wonka, gazing down. Then he paused, and he turned around and looked at Charlie with a most serious expression on his face. ‘Do you love it too, Charlie?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ cried Charlie, ‘I think it’s the most wonderful place in the whole world!’ 

‘I am very pleased to hear you say that,’ said Mr Wonka, looking more serious than ever.’ He went on staring at Charlie. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am very pleased indeed to hear you say that.’” 

In order to fully explore my idea, that this idea of wonderment and excitement could be extrapolated to work within the confines of an adult environment, I decided to team up with my housemates an host a chocolate party. My first hurdle was trying to get people to actually turn up, although my house is very useful in terms of proximity to university, it is nothing if not way out in the sticks. I needn’t have worried. Turns out, if you circulate the words “chocolate” and “party” people will make the journey. Even if that journey takes two hours, people will make the journey. I also learned that when chocolate is involved, any form of budget gets lost somewhere along the way...

My next hurdle was what to serve and how to serve it. What is so remarkable about Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory was not just the incredible sweets that barely toe the line between magic and possibility, but it was also the amazing way in which these sweets were served; chocolate mixed by waterfall, television chocolate, Mr Wonka’s private yacht made out of a giant, hollowed out boiled sweet. With this philosophy in mind I threaded cotton through flying saucers and strung them from the ceiling, attached Hershey’s Kisses to the banister and hid Fererro Roche around the house. Lollipops dangled from every light fitting. There were sweets and chocolates hanging from the ceiling, the lights, going up the stairs and attached to the 

walls. 

Then I turned my attention to the food. I wanted food that would be recognizable as food but still appropriate to be found in a 21st century Willy Wonka Factory. A bowl of toffee became “Stickjaw for talkative parents” Skittles became “Rainbow Drops, (Suck them and you can spit in six different colours)” A chocolate fountain became a chocolate waterfall, 

marshmallows were now “Eatable Marshmallow Pillows”

and a selection of sweets stuck to the wall (Mint Jujubes for the boy next door, they’ll give him green teeth for a month, Cavity Filling Caramels, no more dentists, and Magic Hand Fudge, hold it in your hand and you can taste it in your mouth) all mixed together to form “Lickable Wallpaper, for nurseries.” 

We also had a plate of “invisible chocolate bars for eating in class” which for some strange reason we never seemed to run out of... 

As well as the “chocolate waterfall” there was also a “white chocolate pond” which was a white chocolate fondue and strawberries covered in chocolate which became “chocstraws, imported direct from loompaland” (granted the food was meant to be awful in loompaland but I was running out of ideas) 

Along with this my housemate and I made chocolate flapjacks, chocolate truffles and an entire brownie mountain. And, of course, we also had many “fizzy lifting drinks.” 

“Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.” 

Part of the appeal of Wonka’s chocolate is it’s element of magic. Subtle magic that just pushes what’s possible in reality. Wish fulfillment, sweets+. It’s this extra something within the sweets that fuels the imagination. What Roald Dahl does is tap into the dreams inherent in every bite, each bubblegum bubble blown is an attempt to blow the biggest bubble, and I know that I at least, have imagined what would hatch from a chocolate egg each time easter rolled around. 

I had no such magic at my disposal. What I did have however, was alcohol, and an incredibly creative housemate who was able to come up with recipes that matched Dahl’s creations: 

Chocolate Milk from Chocolate Cows

1 shot Thornton’s CHOCOLATE LIQUEUR

1/2 shot Smirnoff VODKA

CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE to taste

Pour in Chocolate Milk and Liqueur

Shake

Add shot of vodka

Serve with whipped cream

Hot Ice-Cream for a Cold Day

1 shot Baileys IRISH CREAM 

1 scoop VANILLA ICE CREAM

Whip Vanilla Ice-Cream till smooth

Pour into a glass

Mix one shot of Baileys

Enjoy!

The party ended up being ridiculously fun, everyone eating and drinking and laughing and having fun. Pulling food from the walls and ceiling and almost every surface in our house. What I loved about it is the way that all our guests bought into the premise, and how they could, as adults, still enjoy the themes and motifs that come from a book that they last read in childhood. That we still remember these characters and situations years after we have not only read the book, but left childhood behind us. 

All quotes are taken directly from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” By Roald Dahl.