The pandemic has meant going on trips less often, and going to my local supermarket more. It often happens that I have trouble deciding what to buy at my usual store from among the usual items. That might be why I sometimes notice myself slowly walking the aisles of the supermarket. And I might notice in the confection section something I used to eat in my childhood, and think, “They still have these?” In this article I’d like to tell you about some confections and so on that have been around a really long time.
I’ll start with chocolate, which Brazilians love.


According to data from 2020, Brazil ranks 7th in the world for production of cacao. But in 2017, it ranked 34th in the whole world for chocolate consumption. Brazilian chocolate brand Lacta opened in São Paulo in 1912. Apparently chocolate was being imported from Europe at the time, but WWI stopped those chocolate imports, so they built a factory in São Paulo in 1917 and began making chocolate. The most popular item is a chocolate bar called Diamante Negro (Black Diamond). They put this chocolate bar out as a new product during the 1938 FIFA World Cup, and its name came from the nickname for Brazil’s best soccer player at the time, Leônidas da Silva, who was famous for being particularly good at the bicycle kick. Diamante Negro is a delicious milk chocolate bar containing cashew nuts and little bits of crunchy honey. It is still the number one selling chocolate bar in Brazil.


The Sonho de Valsa (Waltz Dream) is a bonbon I love. The pink packaging is cute, and they taste good.


Bis are very popular chocolate-coated crispy wafers. They are small, so after the first one, you eat another, then another, and so on. That’s why they’re called “bis” (“encore”), right. They are also good as souvenirs.




They also have chocolate sticks like a set of coloring pencils, and something called “Baton” (“Lipstick”). These chocolate sticks like a set of coloring pencils used to look like a packet of cigarettes. From the 50s through 70s, kids used to eat this slender chocolate pretending to be cool cigarette-smoking adults. In 1990, sale of that chocolate was banned, and then they started making the chocolate sticks like a set of coloring pencils.



Tostines cookies also remind me of years past. I still use them for the dough in tarts.
Champanhe, made by Bauducco, are nice to eat as is, and they are also often used to make sweet treats. They are quite thick and they’re sprinkled in sugar granules, so they are also used for decoration. They have been selling for more than 60 years.



Nestlé condensed milk used to be sold as “Milkmaid” but consumers started calling it “Leite da Moça” (“milkmaid milk”), so now it is called Leite Moça, not condensed milk and is indispensible in confection making. It has already been selling for 100 years.
Another indisipensible item for cake baking is baking powder. Royal brand baking powder from America now has the more familiar name, “Pó Royal” (“royal powder”).
If you ever drop into a supermarket here, you really should try these traditional confections.