So apparently it’s World Chocolate Day. Apart from making us crave some chocolate delights here at the Archive, it got us exploring the origins of cocoa grinding. A quick search of our catalogue shows some of the world’s mills that powered cocoa-grinding machinery. They were often used to extract cocoa butter from the pods, which would then be used in the production of delectable confectionery.
It turns out that a mill only a stone’s throw from the Archive was used to grind cocoa, certainly around the time of the Second World War. One of our local volunteers, Tom, had mentioned about the link in the past. Recent work by our U3A volunteers on an important local mill collection (The Brian Eighteen Collection) includes several newspaper cuttings that explore the cocoa stories of what was described by journalists as the “Burghfield mill mystery”.
We even have a book on France’s chocolate mills. If any of this has encouraged you to reach for a chocolate then go ahead and indulge, we won’t tell anyone!
