The chronicler met a post-war girl who grew up in the Torres farmhouse, in Las Cabezas de San Juan (Seville). That creature, who ate chickpeas for lunch and dinner, once asked her mother: “Do young gentlemen make their bellies?” “What things! Clear!”. She was naive. When she saw the gentlemen’s children snacking on tangerines and chocolate, she could not imagine that such delicacies had the same effects as her vegetables.
Fruit and sweets were unattainable for most boys and girls in black and white Spain in the 1930s. It is possible to study the history of that country through snacks. The girl from the farmhouse ate in the afternoon, when she was lucky, a piece of black bread with a few drops of vinegar (or wine: wine was the only thing that was abundant in those days when so many things were lacking). “And you didn’t put sugar in it?”
“Sugar! “Sugar was a black market luxury!” Many people of his generation had a reverential respect for bread. That’s why they kissed him if he fell to the ground. “May you not experience a war, may you not lack bread,” were later common phrases in the house of that girl, who grew up with the satisfaction of going to pick up her children from school with the summum of snacks: a bunch of grapes with cheese and bread. White bread!
The schoolchildren of the sixties, that is, the children of the children of the Civil War, grew up during what economists called Franco’s developmentalism, in the midst of a dictatorship, but in a society that was slowly freeing itself from hunger and hardship. The hardships to fill the plate. The others continued until the dictator’s death. At that time an advertisement became popular that began like this: “I am that little black guy…”
Readers of a certain age will complete the song: “I am that little black guy / from tropical Africa / who while farming sang / the ColaCao song.” The chorus added: “It is the ColaCao breakfast and snack / it is the ColaCao breakfast and ideal snack, ColaCaooo.” This time machine will take many to the end of school: a table, a glass with lumps and some María cookies, while the radio played and her mother ironed.
ColaCao was born in a location in Gràcia, Barcelona, ??with a long and rich chocolate tradition as we already explained here. Two partners, José María Ventura and José Ignacio Ferrero, registered the brand in 1945. They had created a star product, which would not take many years to become popular. The radio helped: ColaCao was the first brand to sponsor a radio soap opera (Matilde, Perico y Periquín, in the 1950s).
Already in 19th century Spain there were snacks and snacks, as Clarín explains in La Regenta, in which all meals are so important and in particular this snack that is taken in the afternoon. Thus, while in the house of the Marquises of Vegallana the snack consisted of “syrups, custards, sandwiches, empanadas and puff pastries”, Anita Ozores had to settle for “a little bread with butter soaked in tears”.
Other Ozores who in their childhood viewed with envy the delights of wealthier homes settled accounts with the past. They did it already in the 20th century, and not only with the ColaCao lumps, but with industrial buns like donuts, a product also with Catalan DNA: it was brought to Spain from the US by Andreu Costafreda, the founding baker of the Panrico Group. (“Come on, donuts!” said another mythical ad).
Nutritionists had not yet warned against excessive sugar consumption and the holy trinity of Bimbo, bony, tigretón and rosa pantera triumphed, which continue to be marketed with an improved recipe. If popularity is measured by jokes, here are some kings of the snack: “Your father is an outlaw.” “And yours is a tigretón” (a play on words with outlaw and phoskistos, another pastry from rival Nutrexpa).
The bollycao also triumphed outside of commercial uses, as attested to by its polysemy (a bollycao today would be a hottie, someone very young and with a very good appearance). The society of industrial buns and cheese sandwiches with grapes was no longer the same, nor was the society of La Regenta and that of the girls of the ration cards, Pelargón and post-war formula milk. .
The schoolchildren for whom Franco is today just a sword in History classes no longer live on the streets, savage. They no longer have scabs on their knees or play endless soccer games. Or hopscotch. Hide-and-seek, camber, churro, half-sleeve, mangotero. The eternal afternoons are over. Their mothers no longer look out the window so they can eat their sandwich once and for all and go upstairs to do their homework. Or to dinner.
The squares are almost empty of children’s laughter during the course. The lucky children do extracurricular activities or play alone in their room, with video games, while absentmindedly snacking on something, as the recently deceased sociologist Amando de Miguel explained. Anthropologists David Conde and Lorenzo Mariano, professors at the University of Extremadura, have also analyzed our dietary changes.
These experts say that no matter how poorly children snack now, and many cannot snack or snack poorly, the situation of their grandparents and great-grandparents was even worse. The milk was so watered down that prices varied depending on the quality: “Milk, cow’s milk, pure cow’s milk and cow’s milk,” read the signs in some stores. In other businesses they read: “It’s not coffee, but it tastes like coffee.”
In all stories you win and you lose. Hello and goodbye. Hello to Nestlé condensed milk (manufacturer of Pelargón), margarine and juices. To fingers covered in Nocilla or Nutella. To the WhatsApp messages (“Do you have homework? Have you had a snack?”). And goodbye to the screams at the windows (“Am I coming down to look for you?”). This is how the chronicler ends, with a goodbye that his recipient will no longer be able to receive: “Your snacks were unbeatable. But it wasn’t because of the grapes or the cheese. Not for the bread either. “It was for you, mom.”
