Baker's Chocolate Scented Breezes....Scents Of My Childhood
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, not far from Dorchester Lower Mills, where the Baker's Chocolate Factory was located. I remember the frequent fresh salt air breezes from the ocean, but every so often, when the wind blew in from another direction, our whole neighborhood smelled like chocolate.
The wonderful wind from the Baker's Chocolate Factory made us feel that we were the luckiest kids in the world. Who cannot be happy when surrounded by the sweet scent of chocolate?
The Baker's Chocolate Company has an old and proud history.... As early as the discovery of America, explorers found that the West Indies had two luxuries....tobacco and chocolate. Yet chocolate was not popular in the new world until fishermen from Gloucester Massachusetts began accepting cocoa beans in payment for cargo. Until then, chocolate was a luxury imported from Europe.
In 1765, John Hannon and an American physician, Dr. James Baker started importing cocoa beans and producing chocolate in the lower mills section of Dorchester, Massachusetts.
The chocolate factory soon became a mainstay in the economy of Dorchester, Massachusetts. It also became one of the area's largest employers. Baker's chocolate was one of the country's first national packaged products since it traveled well and had a long shelf life.
Baker's chocolate is not the chocolate that you eat for a snack. It is high quality chocolate used in cooking and baking. Some chocolate products Baker produces are cocoa and baking chocolate. How many kids have tried a spoonful of Baker's unsweetened cocoa powder or a bite of Baker's unsweetened baking chocolate and been unpleasantly surprised? Today, the Baker Company makes both unsweetened and sweetened chocolate.
In1870 the company published its first cookbook. It was 12 pages long and featured the recipe for German Chocolate Cake. It was given away with many products. Other cookbooks followed, and even today its One Bowl Recipe cookbook is a favorite among home bakers.
After more than 200 years of family ownership, the company and the Baker name were bought out by Kraft Foods. The chocolate is no longer manufactured in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
However, the original building has been preserved and revamped, and has been turned into luxury condominiums and apartments. Sadly, the sweet smell of chocolate is probably long gone.
Sources:
Personal Experience:
Wikipedia
slashfood.com
Published by Memmay Moore
I am a transfer to Tampa from Boston where I had many years experience in health and nutrition education. I am now enjoying a new career in writing and photography. View profile
- Camping in the Star City, Arkansas AreaCamping in the Star City area of Arkansas is limited to two areas.
- Islamist and Democratic Advances in the Middle EastIslamism, while always a political force in the Middle East, has in the past three decades experienced an upsurge in power. Interestingly, it seems that the very successes of the Islamist groups have helped impede dem...
- InterRacial Relations in the New MillenniumThis is an essay of hope. The hope, if I may speak frankly, is that I'll someday find a white chick who will still be able to comfortably call me, a black male, "her ni&&a" in the morning.
Shana Morrison at Blues in the Park in Fair Oaks, CaliforniaOn Saturday June 18th, the laid-back suburb of Fair Oaks, near Sacramento, California, presented its 6th Annual Blues in the Park, The Fair Oaks Blues & More Festival, featuring...- An In-depth Look at MGM's Blockbuster Musical Singin' in the RainSingin' In The Rain saw instant success with its 1952 release and remains one of the most highly acclaimed musicals ever. Through this examination of the film you will learn what the movie is about and why it became...
- Product Review: CocoaVia Chocolate Bars
- Confessions of a Chocoholic: The Chocolate Made Me Do It!
- Take the Tour of Chocolate Through Brussels
- Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977)
- Bicycle Shops in the Fargo Moorhead Area
- Avoiding the Mall: The Best Places for Gifts in the Shenango Valley
- Alternative Film Theaters in the Triangle
39 Comments
Post a CommentYou were blessed. I grew up in a small town in the Yakima Valley of Washington State. We were downwind of a meat packing plant/slaughterhouse. Eeeyeewww! They were located outside the town limits, so we couldn't do anything about it except hold our noses.
I didn't realize Baker's chocolate was made in Dorchester (I grew up an hour north of Boston, in Manchester). What a neat piece of history.
Those buildings are wonderful. While one doesn't smell chocolate there anymore, they are certainly much loved. Thank God they were restored, rather than just torn down and replaced with McMansions.
Wonderful aritcle!
We grew up near a bakery and could smell fresh bread in the afternoon. It was very nice :-)
Wonderful. :)
my favorite memory is the small of baby own's soup, I love that smell so much, and then there is the smell of a fresh green pepper in my mother's kitchen, these smells bring warmth and comfort to my soul
That was a wonderful article. Lucky you! My childhood memories are filled with riding the school bus past the hog barn and we lived within distance of smelling it during the summer too. Oh man that was miserable. We were out of there when I turned 9 though.
When I was a kid, I loved a poem about the scent of chocolate. You captured the memory here.
Great article about how a smell can bring back such a wonderful memory. I have an old cookbook by Baker's Chocolate. I don't imagine it's as old as the one you mentioned, but I got it in a bunch from my grandmother. I hadn't thought about it in a long time.
Nice memories, my Grandmother lived next to Proctor & Gamble and it smelled like Coconut when they made coconut soaps