Lohengrin (chocolate)
Lohengrin is the name of a Norwegian chocolate bar that was produced by the Freia company until the beginning of 2019 . First produced in 1911 on the occasion of a production of the Wagner opera Lohengrin at the Oslo National Theater exclusively for sale in this house, the chocolate bar has now become one of Norway's longest selling confectionery. In 2009 it was declared a national treasure .
history
The chocolate bar was launched in 1911 under unusual conditions. The Freia company signed a contract with the Oslo National Theater , according to which the new product would be sold exclusively in the theater that had opened twelve years earlier. The direct reason for the agreement was a production of the Wagner opera Lohengrin at the Oslo house. The chocolate went on sale for the first time during the premiere on December 7, 1911, but it was also used as a prop on the stage. According to the contract, the candy was only offered at the National Theater until 1914, after which it was also sold in grocery stores, kiosks, etc.
Henrik Bull , who as a young architect designed the building of the National Theater, was commissioned to design the chocolate . Bull had been trained in Berlin and tried in his work around the turn of the century to combine the German-Austrian variant of Art Nouveau with a national romantic ornament known as the dragon style , which he was familiar with from the Norwegian stave churches . This will to form can still be seen in the Lohengrin chocolate: the bar has stylized roses and curved, non-symmetrical lines at the rounded ends, as were typical for the design of everyday objects at that time. Over the decades, however, the décor was simplified, so that the design principles of its designer are only rudimentary today. There are some references to the romantic opera Lohengrin : in addition to the floral motif in the libretto , the pagan goddess Freia plays a certain role in it, who is invoked by the sorceress Ortrud in the aria "Desecrated Gods" ("Freia! Erhabne, Hear mich!") . The Oslo manufacturer of Lohengrin chocolate was named after this mythological figure.
The chocolate bar initially had the status of an exquisite consumer item that you can buy on special occasions, e.g. B. at an opera, performed. After the Second World War, sales fell. When Freia announced the end of Lohengrin production in the 1970s, the many protests from consumers persuaded the company to leave the bar in the range . In 1993, the American company Kraft Foods (renamed Mondelēz International in 2012 ) acquired all of the shares in Freia; since then it has also been selling this product.
Henrik Bull was awarded a medal from the National Association of Norwegian Architects (Norske Arkitekters Landsforbund) for designing the Lohengrin chocolate . The confectionery received another honor in March 2009: the Norwegian Association for the Protection of Culture (Norges Kulturvernforbund) declared it a national cultural asset.
In February 2019, Mondelēz International announced that the production of Lohengrin had been discontinued due to lower demand.
product
Originally the chocolate was offered in two different sizes, but now there is only one version of it around 11 centimeters long and 34 grams heavy. It is only sold in Norway. Because of its shape and packaging, which was also designed by Bull, it has been apostrophized as a bone in silver paper. In fact, the chocolate bar is still of aluminum foil and a red band wrapped, to among other things, product information and the expiration date are located. The lettering "Lohengrin" has been revised several times over the decades.
According to the manufacturer, the product is a "dark chocolate filled with rum cream". Because of the thin consistency of the light yellow rum cream, the chocolate is usually consumed upright. Kraft Foods specifies the following ingredients: sugar , cocoa mass , sorbitol , cocoa butter , glucose syrup , soy lecithin , flavorings , invertase and citric acid .
One hundred grams of Lohengrin chocolate has a calorific value of 1955 kilojoules or 465 kilocalories . Of those 100 grams, 70 grams are carbohydrates , 19 grams are fats, and 2.7 grams are protein .
Milk is not normally listed as an ingredient, but the banderole contains the information that in addition to the smallest amounts of almonds, nuts and wheat, chocolate can also contain “traces of milk”. Nevertheless, the Norwegian Vegetarian Association (Norsk Vegetarforening) recommends that all people with a vegan diet consume the bar, as it does not contain any animal substances.
Web links
- Article about Lohengrin on the homepage of Kraft Foods, Norway (Norwegian) ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Denne 108 år gamle sjokoladen får du snart ikke tak i lenger Aftenposten, February 15, 2019
- ↑ a b c Lohengrin er mer enn utseendet address notification , March 16, 2009
- ↑ a b c Lohengrin kåret til ukens Kulturminne homepage of Kraft Food, accessed on October 25, 2009
- ↑ See Stephan Tschudi-Madsen, Henrik Bull , Oslo 1984
- ↑ Lohengrin ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Article on the website of the Norsk Kulturvernforbund on the Year of Cultural Heritage 2009, accessed on October 25, 2009
- ↑ Vegansk godteri ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Homepage of the Norsk Vegetarforening , accessed on October 25, 2009
