M&M’s: they melt in your mouth, not in your hand. This was what American soldiers badly needed during World War II. They were given the chocolate treats as emergency rations…
It is hard to fight a war on an empty stomach. Reflexes weaken and what’s worse, morale weakens. That’s why rations were an important part of logistics during World War II. The Americans named the food of their soldiers with letters: A, B, C, D. Ration A meant fresh foods and ration B meant prepackaged and tinned foods. The army chefs would take these two kinds of foods and prepare a meal for the soldiers on the spot.
Cooking wasn’t always possible though and that is why soldiers took ration C with them to the battlefield: a complete pre-cooked meal in a can. They had to have the time to warm this food up though. If you became hungry with bullets flying around your head everywhere you had to find a way to raise your energy levels quicker. This situation was what the chocolate in ration D was meant for: little calorie bombs for emergencies.
Almost all of the chocolate in ration D was manufactured by the same company, The Hershey Company from Pennsylvania, Hershey’s for short. The chocolate for the soldiers on the battle grounds wasn’t very different from the Hershey bars sold in American supermarkets. They had a different wrapping and they were a bit heavier but they tasted just as good. This was why some people suggested making bad tasting chocolate bars, so the soldiers wouldn’t eat them until absolutely necessary. This idea was quickly discarded though, because it would be bad for the soldiers’ morale…
The military chocolate bars had to be able to resist any kind of hard circumstance, like a burning hot desert or the pockets of sweaty soldiers. Hershey’s searched for the perfect solution for melting chocolate and came up with the idea of a protective coating of crunchy sugar. Not coincidentally the son of William F.R. Murrie, the owner of Hershey’s, started a business in sugarcoated chocolate candy.
That was not your idea!
Right before World War II son Bruce Murrie closed a business deal with another son, Forrest Mars. Forrest’s father Frank had introduced the famous Mars bars in 1932. Young Forrest had seen soldiers eating sugarcoated chocolate during the Spanish Civil War of the nineteen thirties. He noticed that the chocolate didn’t melt as easily as it did with a normal chocolate bar. He’d rather steal a good invention than think of a bad one and he set his heart on copying the product in America. Bruce Murrie liked the idea because he would be able to sell the candy to the army using his father’s connections. Fortunately for the two gentlemen World War II broke out and the demand for chocolate rations increased. Forrest Mars patented the sugarcoated chocolate candies and in 1941 he started the production process.
Mars and Murrie appropriately named their candy M&M. That same year soldiers were able to enjoy their new crunchy sugarcoated chocolate treats. After the war had finished they missed their candy so badly that M&M’s quickly appeared in stores.
It wasn’t until the nineteen sixties that the Dutch got to know M&M’s, under a different name though. The regular M&M’s were called Treets and the peanut M&M’s were called Bonito’s. The popularity of the candy treats rose after a worldwide marketing campaign in the nineteen eighties. The Netherlands participated as well and in 1983 changed the names of the chocolate candies to M&M’s. The famous M&M’s slogan is also from that year: they melt in your mouth, not in your hand.
Edible chess pieces
The happy M&M’s figurines have considerable increased the ever growing flock of M&M fans. Since 1995 M&M’s Red and Yellow have been making their appearance in the M&M’s commercials and in doing so they have caused a true M&M mania. There are shops that exclusively sell every kind of weird variety of M&M’s and accompanying products: dolls, tableware, duvets and of course, chess games.
The Chessmen Museum also displays an M&M’s chess game. In their day, the huge chess pieces were filled with M&M’s but they have been eaten a long time ago. That doesn’t make the game any less fun though! Especially the knight, a blue M&M on a little horse, is very popular amongst the museum’s young visitors.
M&M chess game
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