Be Like Willy
The spirit of chocolate
In the 2023 film Wonka, young and wide-eyed Willy presents his latest chocolate creation, the Hoverchoc, to the old guard of chocolatiers, the gatekeepers of the city’s chocolate market. As they bite down on the Hoverchoc, they converse:
“It’s not just chocolate, is it? There’s… marshmallow.”
“That’s right. Harvested from the Mallow Marshes of Peru.”
“And caramel.”
“Salted. With the bittersweet tears of a Russian clown.”
“Is that… cherry?”
“Cherry-picked by the pick of the cherry-pickers from the Imperial Gardens in Japan.”
To enjoy a chocolate truffle is to touch God. To open oneself up to the wonders of the world and the depths of human experience.
Tropical rain gives life to the cacao bean. Each year, nearly one million tons of the fermented and dried bean are shipped off to the Netherlands alone, one of the world’s great processors of cacao. Roasted, cracked, and winnowed, the beans are plucked from their husks to form cocoa nibs, then ground into a thick, flowing paste. The master chocolatier crafts delicate morsels placed in specially-shaped molds. Boxes upon boxes of the completed delights are shipped off to shops across the world.
Farm labor, weather systems, barrels of crude oil fueling temperature-controlled vehicles, and decades of culinary experience collide into a single moment: the bite. The hard shell gives way to a complex interior, filled with coconut marshmallow, caramel ganache, or blueberry jam. The whole experience lasts 10, maybe 20 seconds, just a fleeting moment of perishable delight.
The chocolate truffle is about emotion. In an episode of Founders Podcast, David Senra details the life of the elusive chocolatier Michele Ferrero, creator of Nutella, Kinder, Tic Tac, and Ferrero Rocher.
Michele’s inventions often blended playfulness and indulgence, acknowledging that candy was as much about emotion as flavor. In fact, he didn’t call what he was making candy or confections. He called his inventions ‘comforts.’
Earlier on in Wonka, Willy arrives in an unnamed European city inspired to share the joy of chocolate with anyone he can. He dreams of opening a shop in the Galeries Gourmet alongside the city’s famed chocolatiers. Searching for a place to stay, he fails to read the fine print at Mrs. Scrubbit’s boarding house and becomes indebted to its conniving owner. He is forced to work long days in the basement beneath hot steam, scrubbing piles of never-ending dirty laundry with the rest of the unfortunate souls tricked into signing their life away.
Willy befriends Noodle, an orphan who has spent her whole life in the boarding house and has never tasted chocolate. Willy whips up a special treat just for her in his ‘travel factory’, an unfolding piece of luggage filled with valves and pipes and the ‘world’s finest ingredients’. He combines ‘silver linings made of condensed thunderclouds’ and ‘liquid sunlight’ to form a single chocolate truffle. As Noodle takes her first bite, her face lights up.
Young Willy is an entrepreneur in the purest sense. He is compelled to create and share his creations with those around him, even under the worst conditions. It’s easy to feel like the spirit of the entrepreneur has soured. The mere mention of the word brings to mind TikTok hustlers, Shark Tank pitches, and LinkedIn slop. Despite this, the joy of creation is eternal. Be like Willy.
