I don't think I've ever eaten a pristine Cadbury Flake. Invariably, large shards of the ripply chocolate have sheared away from the main corpus, accompanied by a sad collection of crumbs in the end of the wrapper. Often, the whole thing has suffered catastrophic failure, and is in two or more disjointed segments. Of course it can repaired with a soldering iron set on low heat, but this is tedious and the results are never perfect.
Crisps are even worse. The little scree- pile of overflavoured shards in the bottom of the packet bear witness to a troubled life beset with careless handling. Repair, in these cases, is almost invariably uneconomic.
I think it behoves the manufacturers of the better sorts of chocolate bars, crisps and suchlike, to produce a special range of "Mint Condition" products for the discerning shopper. These products would be carefully selected from the production line, and taken to a quiet room where they would be hand-packed with loving gentleness (but in the same wrapper as the regular product). Perhaps a small wax seal* could be added to distinguish these from the hoi polloi of similar goods.
These mint-condition items would then be individually packaged in bubble wrap, and dispatched to suitable retailers for sale (at a suitable premium) to discerning customers.
[*or other appropriate mammal]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 Cadbury's Flake. http://www.classictvads.co.uk/ctv2.html [MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007] http://wordnavigator.com/contains/wawa/ [hippo, Oct 09 2007] cadbury chocolate comes in bars that are not at all flakey and crisps, well they come in potatoes.-- po, Oct 08 2007 you think the pun fooled us?-- po, Oct 08 2007 Bravo.
Hint: a hot air gun and a suitable mould can be used to consolidate a troubled flake into a pristine ingot, although the original intention is lost and the yield (as with any flake derivative) is not high.-- Texticle, Oct 08 2007 [po] - china clay is also available as large blocks. However, this is no subsitute for a vase that has been shattered by some misfortune.
[texticle] - Agreed but, as you note, the consolidated Flake will lose its essential flakiness. Even the soldering-iron method is capable only of welding together the outermost layers - the many internal fractures remain, unless one goes through a very painstaking process of delaminating the whole thing and rebuilding it ripple by ripple.
I know of only one person in the entire U.K. who is capable of restoring Flakes to their original condition. A complete strip-down and rebuild can take many weeks, and his services command a high price. I am not prepared to divulge his name, as he is currently undertaking some restoration work for me, and I don't want him lured away by a better offer.
I have heard that Lancashire craftsmen have developed an endoripplic laser tool for microsurgery on Flakes. It has a fine fibreoptic needle which can be carefully guided down the channels between the folded ripples of chocolate. At the end of the needle is a mirror and lens arrangement (for viewing the interior of the channel), and a second lens which focusses a laser beam into a small spot hot enough to weld the fractured chocolate back together. I've seen some very impressive results, but the system isn't (yet) commercially available.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 Good grief, man. It's modernized life that's the problem in the first place! Flakes used to be made by hand- pleating chocolate sheets held at just the right temperature, by craftsmen who knew their business and took pride in their job. It's only since we've started churning these things out by the hundred that we've treated them as throwaway chaff to be bounced carelessly in a delivery van and stacked with abandon on the shelves by some spotty oik who couldn't care less. I'm arguing from a gentle retreat from this mad consumerism.
Incidentally, I just realized that I can't think of any word except "throwaway" that has "wawa" in it. So this has all been worthwhile.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 I like a bit of rough actually. pristine rhymes with my name but does nothing for me.-- po, Oct 08 2007 Well, miss Dean, each to their own.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 //other appropriate mammal// = gummy bear?-- lurch, Oct 08 2007 Both, but I don't understand the question.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 Ah. Follow. With you. Quite. Doubly so, I think.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 mmmmmmmm pristine chocolate...-- Voice, Oct 09 2007 //spotty oik// <David Attenborough voice> Here we have the lesser spotty oik in its natural habitat, a suburban supermarket. Frequently nocturnal, the oik will stack shelves for hours on end, for little apparent personal gain, with others of its kind.</DAv>-- neutrinos_shadow, Oct 09 2007 stowaway, towaway?-- csea, Oct 09 2007 I don't know about this. One of the signs the Flake connoisseur looks for is the shape and volume of the broken-off shards of chocolate. These give vital clues as to the consistency of the chocolate used, the humidity at which the packet was sealed, and how well the Flake has developed through the aging and maturation process. About a teaspoon of chocolate shards in a packet is a good sign, indicating that the Flake in question is likely to be the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate.-- hippo, Oct 09 2007 The bits at the bottom of a pack are the best, whether that pack contained crisps, a flake, pork scratchings or peanuts. Last Rolo anyone?-- theleopard, Oct 09 2007 Yes, but only in the context of a whole packet - you wouldn't want a packet just of the crumbs from the bottom of other packets.-- hippo, Oct 09 2007 Wouldn't you?-- theleopard, Oct 09 2007 //Chiwawa from Petawawa// That would be a Chiuaua, shirley? But I am happy to have had stowaway brought to my attention. Not sure about towaway. And [hippo], I would have to disagree. In fact I do.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 09 2007 random, halfbakery