5-3 Chocolate
Hershey's Chocolate in War
The first chocolate ration bar commissioned by the United States Army was the “Field Ration D” or “Ration, Type D”, commonly known as the "D ration." Army Quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan approached Hershey's Chocolate in April 1937, and met with William Murrie, the company president, and Sam Hinkle, the chief chemist. Milton Hershey was interested in the project when he was informed of the proposal, and the meeting began the first experimental production of the D ration bar.
Colonel Logan had four requirements for the D ration bar. The bar must:
- Weigh 4 ounces (113.4 g)
- Be high in food energy value
- Be able to withstand high temperatures
- Taste "a little better than a boiled potato" (to keep soldiers from eating their emergency rations in non-emergency situations)
Tropical Bar
In 1943, the US Army approached Hershey about producing a confectionery-style chocolate bar with improved flavor that would still withstand extreme heat in the Pacific rim. After a short period of experimentation, the Hershey company began producing Hershey's Tropical Bar. The bar was designed for issue with field and specialty rations, such as the K ration, and originally came in 1-ounce (28 g) and 2-ounce (56 g) sizes. After 1945, it came in 4-ounce (112 g) D ration sizes as well.
The Tropical Bar (it was called the D ration throughout the war, despite its new appellation) had more of a resemblance to normal chocolate bars in its shape and flavor than the original D ration, which it gradually replaced by 1945. While attempts to sweeten its flavor were somewhat successful, nearly all U.S. soldiers found the Tropical Bar tough to chew and unappetizing; reports from countless memoirs and field reports are almost uniformly negative
It is estimated that between 1940 and 1945, over 3 billion of the D ration and Tropical Bars were produced and distributed to soldiers throughout the world. In 1939, the Hershey plant was capable of producing 100,000 ration bars a day. 1
1. Military chocolate (United States) - Wikipedia
What is Yeot ??
Yeot is a Korean malt candy, made by boliing grain syrup. It looks like this.
Although there is no exact record of when Koreans began eating yeot, but there have been records of yeot since at least the Goryeo Dynasty. Goryeo (高麗) was a Korean monarchical and Buddhist Dynasty located on the Korean Peninsula for 474 years from 918 to 1392.
During the Joseon Dynasty(1392~1910), yeot became quite common, and can be found in various literature and genre paintings. In particular, the method of making yeot is described in detail in 『Gyuhapchongseo』 (閨閤叢書, 1809), which can be considered a guidebook for living in the late Joseon Dynasty.
<Ssireumdo (Ssireumdo)> is one of Kim Hong-do's representative works and is realistically depicts the people watching Korean wrestling ‘Ssireum’ .
In Korea, there is a custom of eating yeot or carrying it with you during exams. Praying for passing an exam with yeot is a custom that has been around for quite some time from Joeseon Dynasty. There is a proverb that says, “In a house where people study, you can smell yeot”. The record in the Annals of King Yeongjo* says, “Confucian students taking the civil service examination entered the examination hall with yeot in their mouths”. It shows that even during the Joseon Dynasty, yeot was used to pray for test takers’ success. ( * Annals of King Yeongjo- The Annals, which contains the history of the 51 years and 8 months of King Yeongjo's reign from August 1724 to March 1776.)
The reason yeot has become a representative food for wishing to pass an exam is because in the Korean expression ‘I passed or failed the exam’ is the same with the expression of the properties of yeot. It is related to “stickiness”. Also, it is said that this is because the Chinese character for yeot(飴), is made up of the character 台 and 食, which means ‘food that brings joy (good luck).’
How to make yeot
My grandparents have been making and selling yeot for over 10 years. The story of yeot often appears in interviews. But I couldn't really understand how to make it just by listening to it. It was difficult to understand the words because the scales and tools they used were very different from now and the materials were so detailed and unfamiliar to me. Therefore, I wanted to digest it step by step by researching and visualizing.
Therefore, in a spreadsheet, I divided the paragraphs from grandfather in every sentence and visualized the process of making yeot.
I am sharing my interview transcript of my grandfather describing the recipe of yeot.