Talk:Chocolate

Semi-protected edit request on 24 August 2024

Citation needed for "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate#:~:text=A%202018%20report%20argued%20that%20international%20attempts%20to%20improve%20conditions%20for%20children%20were%20doomed%20to%20failure%20because%20of%20persistent%20poverty%2C%20the%20absence%20of%20schools%2C%20increasing%20world%20cocoa%20demand%2C%20more%20intensive%20farming%20of%20cocoa%2C%20and%20continued%20exploitation%20of%20child%20labor.", cannot find mentioned report. TitanFallout (talk) 11:04, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: I think it's references 160 and 163? NotAGenious (talk) 13:42, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@TitanFallout Ok. BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thinking of a split

Hi all, I'm thinking of trying to broach whether a split is a good idea and how it would be done. The issue is chocolate and cocoa are two different concepts, but the article opens with "Chocolate or cocoa is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa seed kernels". Cocoa, according to how I understand it, refers more to the cocoa bean, in the various stages of being processed, particularly as a commodity. In British English, cocoa is what is referred to in American English as cacao. On future exchanges, "cocoa" is traded. Here is a quote from academics Carla Martin and Kathryn Sampeck:

In the Anglophone context, “cocoa” is used commonly in reference to the tree and the seed, and especially as a referent for the commodity once it has been sold or processed. An important caveat is that the use of the word “cacao” (instead of “cocoa”) is symbolically important in the niche, fine/specialty/craft cacao-chocolate community, where many see it as a return to the historical roots of the crop and a point of distinction from bulk commodity cocoa.

Chocolate generally refers to an end product. I think these concepts are obviously closely linked, particularly around the chocolate industry and chocolate making.

I'm not sure how a split would be done, but I think it's a) unhelpful to have them smushed into one article, especially without any effort at defining terms, and b) the first sentence is just flat out wrong for most uses of the term cocoa.

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 16:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I have slept on this issue, I apologize for not having this all laid out initially. While I am still confused, I think the page needs clarification, and to:

a) split up the "Processing" section into chocolate making and Cacao/cocoa processing, probably moving cacao/cocoa processing off the page entirely to a cocoa page. The ingredients for chocolate can include chocolate powder/liquor, sugar, milk and cocoa butter, and chocolate making is the process of combining these. I've rewritten the dark chocolate based on this idea of isolating chocolate making, see Dark chocolate#Manufacturing. Chocolate making should be its own page.

b) define cocoa. It is confusing to say in the first sentence that chocolate is also known as cocoa, and then refer to "Child labor in cocoa harvesting"; you cannot "harvest chocolate". Cocoa is used in a different way and should be differentiated.

c) likely get rid of the reference to cocoa in the lede. This may be a regional thing, but I don't hear people ask for "cocoa" when they want to eat chocolate. It refers to chocolate powder, which is just part of drinking chocolate (hot chocolate). This page does not discuss drinking chocolate. It is understood as eating chocolate, and types of chocolate has never included drinking chocolate. The extent to which chocolate as a drink is discussed, it is referred to as an ingredient/flavoring.

d) Move the page cocoa to cocoa (disambiguation)

e) Move the page cocoa bean to cocoa. The current lede is straight up incorrect;

1) Cocoa is not the same as cocoa beans, it is a more general concept. It refers to cacao in a context of production, and certainly not "the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao". Cocoa powder is still considered cocoa, it is not still cocoa beans. You can still be "harvesting" cocoa, even without having dried and fermented it yet.

2) A lot of countries don't ferment cacao seeds, i.e., Indonesia, the third biggest producer. Are they not cocoa beans? There are a lot more issues with cocoa articles.

The articles are just too confusing and fuzzy. This is not entirely our fault: from an article in Confectionary News: "Leissle, an academic who has studied the chocolate industry for more than 20 years, says that even she struggles sometimes with the various nomenclature." I'm also very sorry for writing so much. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

As the lede is abundantly linked (conspicuously overlinked, WP:OLINK) and the topics are closely related to chocolate overall, splitting parts of the article, including how it's made, to separate articles would create an undesirable WP:REDUNDANTFORK. Zefr (talk) 18:24, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Points well taken. I've made an effort to remove links from the lead and I won't split the chocolate making section off. I will start a conversation on cocoa bean about renaming to cocoa. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 03:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Which picture for the modern history section?

There isn't a great deal of space in the history section, and I am unsure which is a better picture. The latter better represents most of chocolate history, but is perhaps too dark. The former is another picture of solid chocolate, of which the article has plenty. But it is a representation for the modern period of chocolate. It's just that it's not adding that much that isn't already in the article.

Options

• 
  The first mass produced solid chocolate
• 
  A still life, containing solid and liquid chocolate, as well as elements of chocolate culture

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 11:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the existing image of Fry's chocolate dated to the 19th century is fine for the history section. Zefr (talk) 18:24, 14 September 2024 (UTC)