When we came out to France first – nearly seven years ago now- and I went searching for Cocoa Powder for cooking the best one I found was Van Houtens, available on the supermarket shelves.This seemed to deliver the correct cocoa hit when needed. I did have a funny feeling that I had seen it somewhere before, the stuff after all had been produced in France since 1828 it told me on the pack.

It was only today when Síle and I were doing one of our periodic book culls on our rapidly multiplying library that I spotted the reason for the slight feeling of familiaity. In Theodora Fitzgibbon’s excellent taste of Ireland from 1968 (which was safe from the cull) I found the second picture below. It was from George Morrison’s collection, shows a tram, complete with advertisments, crossing Eden Quay in Dublin, and dates from 1897, a mere 116 years ago.

Evidently at that time we were not only eating Donnelly’s Bacon but also sipping Van Houten’s Cocoa. Presumably, sometime in the 20th Century, Cadbury’s managed to create their own monopoly in Ireland. Pity, it is good stuff.