Ferdy and the Chocolate Factory

Ever since Ferdy was about four, he has loved Roald Dahl. It began with the Enormous Crocodile and the Giraffe the Pelly and Me, and he then swiftly moved onto Fantastic Mr Fox, the BFG and The Twits. He even had a Roald Dahl party for his fifth birthday.

Food at Ferdy's Roald Dahl party

Most of this he discovered via audiobooks but now that he can read, his love of these books is being revived by reading them aloud. He's currently reading Billy and the Minpins to me, a book I've never read before.

Over half term we went to see Roald Dahl and the Imagination Seekers, a play inspired by the works of Roald Dahl about the invisible Wurblegobblers who are stealing all the words from the Roald Dahl stories. Only the ancient guild of the Tale Tenders, with the help of the children in the audience, can revive them..

We've also been thinking about chocolate recently (or perhaps not just recently) and Ferdy was interested in where it came from (and how the Romans could enjoy themselves without it), so it seemed appropriate to visit a chocolate factory. Before we went we learnt a bit about the Mayan civilisation and Cortes, who brought the cacau bean to Europe.

One the way, we read an extract of Boy about how Roald Dahl used to test chocolates for Cadbury's when he was at school in Repton, and how he imagined 'a long white room like a laboratory with pots of chocolate and fudge and all sorts of other delicious fillings bubbling away on the stoves, while men and women in white coats moved between the bubbling pots, tasting and mixing and concocting their wonderful new inventions'. (Boy by Roald Dahl p183)

Mouths watering, we had a very rainy walk to the chocolate factory.

Upon arrival, we entered into the south American rainforest to meet the original Mayans and Aztecs who discovered the cacau bean. We learnt about how they used to trade in cacau beans (we even managed some division using cacau beans without Ferdy noticing he was doing division..) and we ate some chocolate. We found out about the many stages a cacau bean goes through before it becomes a chocolate bar, we watched chocolate being tempered and we ate some chocolate. We travelled around a cocoa bean village and we ate some chocolate. We wrote our names in chocolate, we danced on chocolate sweets and splodges and we ate some chocolate. We even rode on a virtual rollercoaster through chocolate. Oh and we ate some chocolate, did I mention that?

Ferdy was also excited to spot Samual Pepys, who wrote about chocolate in his diary and he wanted to find out whether it was before or after the great fire of London (it was in 1657 so before the great fire).

That evening, we didn't eat any chocolate (the chocolate bars we were given have been hidden by mean Mum), but we did watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

On an ethical note, we are currently listening to Michael Morpurgo's Running Wild, a story about a boy who gets lost in the Indonesian rainforest and befriends the animals that live there. He is captured by an evil man who is slowly burning down the rainforest for his palm oil plantations. We were rather dismayed to realise that most mass produced chocolate contains palm oil, something naturally not mentioned on our visit to the factory, but definitely something to think about.