Extracts from the prefaces to the first and second editions.
The object of this work is to furnish a source of information and advice for those who are interested in the branch of industry to which it relates.
The author of this treatise has therefore endeavoured not only to describe the manufacturing processes; but he has also devoted special attention to the raw materials employed, and endeavoured to make them generally familiar by reference to the literature on the subject, as well as by providing a precise account of the chemical constituents of these substances and discussing the consequently necessary procedure to be observed in the course of manufacture. The art of chocolate making is no longer what it was a few decades ago; it has for the most part passed from small operators into the hands of large manufacturers. A short historical resumé will serve as a sketch of this development and a cursory description of some forms of apparatus which have now merely historical interest will serve to show how improvement in the industry has been effected.
Chocolate is a favourite and most important article of food, and in that sense it is subject to legal regulations for which allowances must be made, as well as for the most suitable analytical methods by means of which a manufacturer can ascertain the presence of unlawful mixtures in competing products, so that knowing the regulations in force, he may avoid any infringement of the same.
Within the ten years that have elapsed since the first edition of this work appeared, the manufacture of chocolate has undergone considerable expansion. Not only has the ~modus operandi~ been simplified and improved by the introduction of a number of new mechanical appliances, but the technique of the subject has been so extended, both from chemical and mechanical points of view, as partly to furnish a new standard in estimating and determining cacao constituents and preparations. The author has endeavoured to take due account of all these advances, and made a point of collecting the material scattered through the various professional journals, sifting or supplementing where necessary, in order that all engaged in the industry, ~the manufacturer as well as the food analyst and the engineer~, may be in a position to derive a vivid impression of existing conditions in the chocolate manufacture, from the present volume.