2009jul28. With recorded music in its infancy, German confectionery conglomerate Stollwerk AG tapped into the freakish synergy of synethesiasts to ask an unasked question: what if you could taste music (“What if you could taste music?”)? Then they answered it with the 1903 debut of the foil-covered chocolate record. A record ... made out of chocolate. That you can eat. Or listen to. Or listen to, and then eat. But not the other way around. Unless you have two records, then you could do both things at the same time. Not much is known about this early audible confectionery product, unless more is known. People sat around for awhile eating/listening to records but then they had to go fight wars and this scrumptious technology was quickly forgotten. Decades later, a Berlin resident named Peter Lardong re-created the chocolate record after finding an early-20th century children’s chocolate record at a flea market (it was delicious). He is the subject of this German television video segment entitled Chocolate Record Schallplatten aus Schokolade. He patented the process in 1987 (if you can access the actual German patent [#G8704611.3], please drop me a line). I figured little chocolate curlicues would be flying off the needle, but I was mistaken. Ronald Landuyt, a Belgian chocolate maker, also makes chocolate records but I couldn’t get the video to work. Second Hand Songs indicates that Ronald has a shop in Knokke, Belgium. Finally, here is a three-part series on chocolate records along with a bonus single: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | single
The Routledge guide to music technology – Thom Holmes; pg 292
Encyclopedia of recorded sound – Frank W. Hoffmann, Howard Ferstler; pg 298
Intertwining – John K. Grande; pg 163
