What was that British candy bar someone mentioned in a comment?

September 29, 2016 2:34 PM

Somewhere recently in the green or the blue, towards the end of the comments somebody posted a link to an old advert on YouTube, for an English candy bar.

The commercial was nautical, mariners working on a small ship, and they were sharing a chocolate bar which easily broke into four squares. What was it?

posted by Rash to MetaFilter-Related at 2:34 PM (29 comments total)

Yorkie ? Six chunks, not four though.
posted by firesine at 2:56 PM on September 29, 2016

That's it!

Thanks... but now, I want one (while I'm up on the bridge, looking out at the sea).
posted by Rash at 9:25 PM on September 29, 2016

I would sell my own mother for a Cadbury Boost right now, since we are talking about English chocolate bars.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:38 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rash: I posted a link to it in a comment last year. - might that be where you saw it?
posted by misteraitch at 1:03 AM on September 30, 2016

A Boost is OK, but it's no Star Bar.
posted by pipeski at 1:50 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cadbury’s chocolate is no longer the same since they were taken over by Kraft sadly.
posted by pharm at 2:44 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

/ship runs aground on a reef of gloopy brown wax.
posted by Artw at 8:31 AM on September 30, 2016

Well, you've got all your standard candies: Lemingtons, Fluffingtons, Rum Christophers, Salted Licorice Knib-Knobs...
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:48 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

You really don't want a Yorkie. The idea of them is good. The reality leaves a lot to be desired.

I first experienced them in 1980 during a trip to England. They were fabulous chunks of chocolate--so large and thick it was hard to get your teeth around them. Just nirvana for a chocolate-loving kid.

A few years later they became available in Canada, much to my joy and excitement. They were great, especially as a treat as they tended to cost a bit more than regular chocolate bars. Sadly, after a few years they vanished from the local corner stores and grocery chains.

Last year I was walking by one of those little shops that specializes in imported British goods. I was in a bit of a mood and dying for a bit of chocolate, so I wandered in and sure enough there were Yorkies in stock. They were ridiculously priced, even for a marked-up specialty store, but I caved and bought one anyways. It was terrible--so disappointing. The chocolate was cheaper and coarser and grittier and it had a weird taste that I couldn't quite identify. Something has definitely changed, and it's not just that I'm now considerably older and that my tastes have improved. I grew up knowing the difference between high quality European (German, Swiss, etc.) chocolate and cheap North America stuff, and could appreciate the merits both. The Yorkie was just plain bad. Something in the formula/recipe/production/ingredient quality had definitely deteriorated. It was such a disappointment.
posted by sardonyx at 9:40 AM on September 30, 2016

Another sign of being ancient; reading this MetaTalk post and thinking "Huh, I should have included a link to that Yorkie chocolate bar ad in the very recent Yorkshire FPP". Then checked the FPP and, yeah, *sigh*, age...
posted by Wordshore at 12:11 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

That was where I saw it; sorry Misteraitch.

The idea of them is good. The reality leaves a lot to be desired.

Ah.. Kinda like Fry's Turkish Delight, the British !Lokum. Thanks for the tip!

so large and thick it was hard to get your teeth around them

Reminds me of our own Chunky, back in the day, before its inevitable down-sizing.
posted by Rash at 12:54 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love crunchie chocolate covered biscuits and bars.
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:15 PM on September 30, 2016

Was Curly Wurly, then Wispa, but am now Americanized and am Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.
posted by Wordshore at 3:36 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

O' Henry.
posted by clavdivs at 5:47 PM on September 30, 2016

I used to like that candy bar... hmm, whatchamacallit?
posted by Night_owl at 6:06 PM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ah.. Kinda like Fry's Turkish Delight, the British !Lokum. Thanks for the tip!

To be fair, Fry's Turkish Delight *is* the best edible product in the store (a title shared with pop rocks, though perhaps only because the later is fortified with large quantities of nostalgia.) And, it's far better than any candy available in the average US convenience store. It's no gourmet sausage, but it's a damn good hot dog.

I tend to be skeptical of "they don't make it like they used to" claims. (I'm looking at you, Guinness.) On the other hand, having tasted Asian-market Ovaltine, I'm convinced such changes can be not merely true but astonishing.

Also, I'm grateful to have discovered this while struggling to remember the name Ovaltine.
posted by eotvos at 12:24 AM on October 1, 2016

I agree with Sardonyx that terrible things have been done to Yorkies in terms of flavour, but it's not just that - Yorkies have now been made so much smaller that they no longer have enough pieces to spell 'Yorkie'. And this year's chocolate oranges have hollowed out segments - bloody cunning way to keep the ball the same size visually while reducing the amount of chocolate in it.

I'm going to view this all as symbolic of the way the UK is going - smaller, nastier, and generally not worth going of your way for.
posted by Vortisaur at 6:47 AM on October 1, 2016 [6 favorites]

this year's chocolate oranges have hollowed out segments

WHAT TELL ME YOURE JOKING
posted by billiebee at 7:00 AM on October 1, 2016 [14 favorites]

I'm going to view this all as symbolic of the way the UK is going - smaller, nastier, and generally not worth going of your way for.

Terry's is owned by Kraft, Rowntree by Nestle, so these decisions were made by non-UK corporations, and you are using their corporate greed as an indicator of everyone and everything in the UK, which seems a bit off to me.
posted by marienbad at 8:20 AM on October 1, 2016

I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that Cadbury's changed the Dairy Milk recipe.

The recipe for a mega-selling bar like that is always being tweaked, to reflect supply of ingredients and achieve cost savings where possible - it would have happened all the time before and after Kraft/Mondelez takeover. And the Cadbury factory always used ingredients of a higher quality (relatively) than some other companies, especially the US ones, so changes were more noticeable in their recipes. I must have eaten several thousand Dairy Milk bars in the last 40 years and they have varied. When you get a good one it's still fantastic.
posted by Coda Tronca at 4:08 AM on October 2, 2016

Something in the formula/recipe/production/ingredient quality had definitely deteriorated. It was such a disappointment.
They were taken over by Nestle, a multinational that specialises in adulterating everything they take over by substituting cheaper ingredients. The theory is that people will keep on buying the brand based on their memories of what it used to be.
posted by Lanark at 6:58 AM on October 2, 2016

I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that Cadbury's changed the Dairy Milk recipe.
I think the recipe is more or less the same, and they use the same milk, but production was moved to Poland so the milk is currently transported over 1000 miles.
posted by Lanark at 7:03 AM on October 2, 2016

Well, they’ve done something weird to it, because it doesn’t taste the same.
posted by pharm at 8:17 AM on October 2, 2016

Also, I'm grateful to have discovered this while struggling to remember the name Ovaltine.

It's actually Ovomaltine (or Ovo!), but whoever applied for the trademark in the UK also had trouble remembering the name.
posted by effbot at 12:35 PM on October 2, 2016

> production was moved to Poland so the milk is currently transported over 1000 miles

I don't think this is true. My brother was a production systems guy for Cadbury/Kraft, and one of the prime motivations of the move to Poland was apparently access to high-quality, low-cost Polish dairy supplies.
posted by scruss at 6:32 AM on October 3, 2016

BRING BACK POLLY WAFFLE
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:44 PM on October 3, 2016

I remember getting to London and having my mind absolutely blown that Cadbury Creme eggs were available year round. Somewhere I've got a picture of myself standing next to a Creme Egg vending machine in the Tube and grinning like an idiot.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:45 PM on October 4, 2016

BRING BACK POLLY WAFFLE

Then you can Polly Waffle Doodle all the day.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:52 PM on October 4, 2016

Dairy Milk's still made in Bournville, though. It was the production lines for non-moulded bars that were moved to Poland from Keynsham, and they already used a generic milk chocolate. The Dairy Milk chocolate crumb still comes from Herefordshire, made with local to there milk.
posted by ambrosen at 1:08 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]