Regency Trivia – Things that Didn’t Exist During the Regency

Chocolate candies, as we know them, did not exist during the Regency.

The earliest known makers of eating chocolate were Debauve & Gallais.

Marie Antoinette complained to the Louis XVI former chemist that her medicines tasted to bad to take and asked if he could do something about it. The chemist, Sulpice Debauve, developed a way of combining cocoa, with cane sugar into round disks called Pistoles. By 1800 the first store was opened on the Rive Gauche in Paris. There was also a store in Strasbourg. Sadly it’s no longer there. However, Debauve’s invention never really crossed the English Channel. The chocolate Pistoles are still available in Debauve & Gallais stores in Paris.

It was not until 1847 that Joseph Fry was successful in making a chocolate paste that could be molded. He did this by adding cocoa butter back into the Dutch cocoa that was being used at the time. Even then, it was still several years before chocolate bars were commercially available.

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