I had some of the Hershey’s tropical chocolate in Boy Scouts in the late 60s, and it tasted fine to me, though a bit dry. (On the other hand, as an American kid, I also ate regular Hershey bars…. I’d have to be pretty desperate to eat one today.)

When I first heard Laurie Anderson’s “Strange Angels”, I thought the line “When I was a Hershey Bar in my father’s back pocket” was a reference to that practice. IIRC, Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” references it as well.

“While their attempts to sweeten its flavor were somewhat successful, nearly all U.S. soldiers found the Tropical Bar tough to chew and unappetizing; reports from countless memoirs and field reports are almost uniformly negative. Instead, the bar was either discarded or traded to unsuspecting Allied troops or civilians for more appetizing foods or goods. Resistance to accepting the ration soon appeared among the latter groups after the first few trades. In the Burma theater of war (CBI), the D ration or Tropical Bar did make one group of converts: it was known as the “dysentery ration”, since the bar was the only ration those ill with dysentery could tolerate.”

Puts a whole new spin on those World War II newsreels of kindly GIs handing out chocolate to starving kids.

There’s also a huge page at the Hershey archives http://www.hersheyarchives.org/essay/details.aspx?EssayId=26

“Captain Logan explained his requirements: a bar weighing about four ounces, able to withstand high temperatures, high in food energy value, and tasting just a little better than a boiled potato.Company Chemist Sam Hinkle was charged with developing the bar. The final ingredients were: chocolate liquor, sugar, skim milk powder, cocoa butter, oat flour, vanillin. Sugar was decreased and chocolate liquor increased to give the bar a less appealing taste than normal chocolate bars. . . . Normal chocolate is produced at a flowing consistency when warm and all chocolate machinery is constructed based upon this physical property. The Field Ration D could not flow at any temperature.”

“They don’t melt in your mouth or hand!”

I mean, I’m no fan of Cadbury’s on the whole, but that most Americans who taste their product regard it as revelatory is saying something about the dire quality of Hershey’s “chocolate candy” (legally it is not actually chocolate).

As someone for who American products arrived in his country in one big push after the decline of a pariah regime, there was much excitement because of brand recognition from movies and so on, and then a sudden puzzlement when Budweiser turned out to be pisswater, McDonald’s was crap compared to local chains,  and Hershey’s turned out to be vomit-flavoured sugarsludge.

I read somewhere that in many parts of Asia the locals look on cheese as spoiled milk and wonder how we eat it. Their loss, clearly.

I’m thinking dark chocolate with macadamia nuts, coconut, and maybe some lime zest. 

They used dextroamphetamine for 60 years.  The Canadians were bombed in April 2002.  The USAF switched to modafinil in December 2003, in the wake of the incident.

One forty-five caliber automatic
-
Two boxes of ammunition
-
Four days’ concentrated emergency rations
-
One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
-
One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
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One hundred dollars in rubles
-
One hundred dollars in gold
-
Nine packs of chewing gum
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One issue of prophylactics
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Three lipsticks
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Three pair of nylon stockings.

Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.”