Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of chocolate/archive1

History of chocolate

Featured article candidates/History of chocolate/archive1

Nominator(s): Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chocolate today is a mix of cocoa powder, cocoa butter, milk solids and vanilla, lecithin and PGPR, perhaps some cheap fats depending on where you live. A few thousand years ago it was quite a bit different. This article has come about with the generous reviewing time of It is a wonderful world and Tim riley at GA and PR respectively, I hope it's an enjoyable read. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Passing comments only, but:

FNs 80 and 88 throw up error messages for me
"Today" as a section title fails MOS:RECENT

- SchroCat (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should be resolved. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

I peer reviewed the article and raised a few points, all of which were dealt with satisfactorily. On rereading for FAC I have found nothing more to quibble about and am happy to support the elevation of this article to FA. It seems to me to meet all the criteria: well written, full without being overfull, evidently neutral and balanced, well and widely sourced and nicely illustrated. I enjoyed reviewing it, and I look forward to seeing it on our front page. Tim riley talk 14:14, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is a wonderful world

As mentioned, I passed it to GA. I am not familiar enough with the FA criteria to give a general support or oppose, but I will carry out the spot check:

Spot check

During this check I fixed some errors, and added some information to some of the references:

Added first name of first author to one of the books
Added location of publication to a few books which did not include it in the publisher name
Fixed P/PP errors and hyphen/en dash formatting mistakes
Added archive link to the web source

this script is very good for identifying these fixes. It is a wonderful world (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reference numbers refer to this version.

[1]: no problems

[4a, b]: no problems

[5]: no problems

[41]: no problems

[58]: no problems

[122]: no problems

[125]: no problems

[126a, b]: no problems

[133]: no problems

[137]: no problems

[149]: no problems

[150]: no problems

[161]: no problems

Short note on comprehensiveness: I see this source isn't referenced, have you sifted through it? It is a wonderful world (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I found no issues during the spot check, and very few in my recent more extensive spot check at GA. It is a wonderful world (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NØ

Putting down a placeholder. I enjoyed reading White chocolate, so why not? :) My own FAC could use more reviews in case you are interested.--N Ø 22:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jens

Just a drive-by comment: The history of chocolate dates back over 5,000 years – Is that really the case? This seems to equate chocolate with cacao, but, according to the article, the only evidence of actual chocolate is only in 600 BC? I was also wondering if the article title should be "history of cacao" instead, though I do like the current title. What is your stance here? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources describing a history of chocolate treat domestication as the first step in the history. This is because we can't know when "chocolate" consumption began, as researchers will distinguish chocolate from alcoholic cacao drinks, and when we scrape out pottery we are getting evidence such as theobromine, which looks the same whether consumption was alcoholic or not. So we just generally characterize the history as going back 5000 years, even if we acknowledge we may be referring to pre-cursors.

My personal view on this reflects Sampeck's; that it's more accurate to refer to "chocolate" as one "cacao drink" recipe among many, which would resolve this tension quite well, if only acknowledging chocolate as originating around the mid second millennium. She is prominent in the literature, but her critique doesn't seem to have been taken up too much. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:36, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. May I suggest to make it clear at the beginning of the lead when the oldest known consumption of actual chocolate was? Otherwise I fear it is just misleading, and readers think that chocolate was invented 5,000 years ago, which is what the lead literally says, but which is not necessarily true. Furthermore, the lead goes like this: The history of chocolate dates back over 5,000 years, when the cacao tree was first domesticated in present-day southeast Ecuador. Soon introduced to Mesoamerica, chocolate gained cultural significance as an elite drink among different cultures, including the Mayans and Aztecs. – So this says that "chocolate" was around "soon" after 3,000 years BC, which contradicts the article body saying that the evidence only supports 600 BC (which is very far from "soon"). Then, you have "Origin in South America", implying that chocolate was invented there, which is not necessarily the case. I think you should make this clearer so that it is not miss-interpreted. Maybe the section "Early pre-Columbian" could be renamed in "Early pre-Columbian cultivation of cacao", to make clear that this is not yet about chocolate sensu stricto. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:06, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've made these changes. I didn't rename the section "early pre-Columbian cultivation of cacao, as it isn't that it's not about chocolate in the strictest sense, but that it may not be. I did rename "Origin in South America" → "Cacao domestication in South America" as that's a better summary of Lanaud et al (2024). Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 01:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That works well, thanks! Will try to do a prose review soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Suggest scaling up the diagram
- Done by 35%

File:Mujer_vertiendo_chocolate_-_Codex_Tudela.jpg needs a US tag. Ditto File:Spanish-Unknown-A-Man-Scraping-Chocolate-69_20_1-739x1024.jpg, File:Cover_of_Philippe_Sylvestre_Dufour_book,_17th_century.png
- Done

File:Pre-1928_advertisement_for_Cadbury's_Dairy_Milk_Chocolate.png: why is this believed to be pre-1928? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:50, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Rereading the source, I can clarify it further to between 1905-1906. Dairy Milk Chocolate was released in 1905. On page 37 of the source (Cadbury's Purple Reign: The Story Behind Chocolate's Best-Loved Brand) is the relevant quote: "The box labels for Dairy Milk featured rosy-cheeked dairymaids ferrying gallons of creamy milk into the kitchen, but with the punch-line, 'Rich Nutty Flavour.' However, this was a temporary lapse from the key insight that it was all about the milk, so advertising for Cadbury's Dairy Milk from that point on was solely focused on reinforcing the brand's grip on milk credentials. A year after launch, the label and advertisements were featuring a pixie skimming the cream off containers of milk in a dairy with the punch-line amended to say, 'Rich in Cream.'" I can clarify why I initially wrote pre-1928 if you think it's a relevant consideration. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 06:59, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]