A HARTE APPETITE: UNIQUELY AMERICAN: FUDGE WAS CREATED BY ACCIDENT

Of all the culinary accidents in human history, which include the chocolate chip cookie and, if you believe Charles Lamb's account, roast pork, surely fudge must rank among the most serendipitous.

Nobody knows for sure just who made the first pan of fudge, but most everybody agrees it was invented by mistake. Probably it was the result of a botched batch of caramel or toffee. We do know that it is a relatively recent discovery and that it is uniquely American.

As Lee Edwards Benning notes in her exhaustive treatise on the subject, fudge is little more than 100 years old and was unknown outside this country, even by those who might have been expected to discover it first. Thus, the Chinese, who in the seventh century sent ambassadors to India to learn the secrets of sugar refining, did not know of fudge. Neither did the Spanish, despite the fact that they were the ones who introduced sugar cane seedlings to the New World. Not even the French, who gave birth to the confectionery arts, can take credit for devising fudge. As Benning observes, "Despite their knowledge of marzipan and marshmallows, nougats and pastilles, fondant and caramel (the latter two, father and mother to fudge, respectively), the French learned of that most popular of all confections from America during this century." Speculation has it that fudge was introduced to France and the rest of Europe by U.S. soldiers in World War I when their mothers sent over packages of the homemade candy.

A little detective work reveals that fudge most likely was invented sometime after 1849. That is the date of publication of the second edition of J.M. Sanderson's "Cook and Confectioner," a work of nearly 400 pages that details techniques and recipes for making all manner of candy and sweets. Yet, it contains nary a word about fudge. As Benning argues, this book was simply too complete to have made such an omission, unless the candy did not exist then.

So when did fudge initially appear on the candy scene? The first printed recipe for it appears to be the one included in a pamphlet of homemade candy recipes by a Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill and published in 1909. But there is evidence that people were making the stuff a few years before that.

The first verifiable account of the origin of fudge is the one given by Emelyn B. Hartridge, an 1892 graduate of Vassar College who claims to have obtained the recipe from a classmate whose cousin made and sold it at a Baltimore grocery store. She whipped up 30 pounds of the confection to sell at the Senior Auction in 1888 and from there it caught on across the campus and spread to Smith and Wellesley colleges where girls would concoct it over the gas lamps that hung in their dormitory rooms. Vassar students even devised a song to sing in tribute to "the fudge-pan bright."

It wasn't long before fudge spread westward to places like Mackinac Island off Michigan's Lake Huron coast, sometimes referred to as the fudge capital of the United States. Recipes for it became standard literature on the backs of cocoa cans and containers of marshmallow fluff, and it became a culinary rite of passage for teen-age girls, not to mention a sure-fire way to attract the attention of teen-age boys. (Alas, times were simpler then.) During World War II, Mamie Eisenhower's popular version raised so much money for the fighting effort that her husband named it Million Dollar Fudge. Today the making of fudge is a tourist attraction at theme parks, fairs and shopping centers, such as St. Louis' Union Station. Even the Brigittine monks of the Priory of Our Lady of Consolation in Oregon do a brisk mail order business selling the confection.

While we cannot be absolutely certain who made the first batch of fudge, it is reasonable to conclude that its name derives from the use of the term "fudge" as an expletive. It's not hard to imagine a candy maker at the turn of the century bungling a recipe and in frustration exclaiming, "Oh, fudge!" Webster's still defines the term as meaning "nonsense" when it's a noun, or "to make or put together . . . carelessly" when it's a verb. Either definition might accurately apply to the circumstances of fudge's discovery.

Expletives, probably of a less tame variety, might well be uttered even by someone intentionally attempting to produce a batch of fudge, because the confection has a reputation for being difficult to make. That's because the secret to good fudge is to control the "candying" or graining process, and there are a number of things that can affect that. If the fudge mixture is not boiled long enough, it won't set up properly. If it's boiled too long, it will be too firm and dry. If the mixture is beaten before it is cool enough or beaten too long or too hard, the fudge will become grainy. If it cools too fast it will turn to caramel. If it's made on a humid day, it may not harden completely, and if you don't watch it carefully for telltale signs that it is perfectly ready to pour into the pan, you may miss the opportunity.

Fortunately, there are a number of precautions you can take to increase the likelihood of success. Use a candy thermometer to keep better track of the boiling mixture's progress. Stir with a wooden spoon instead of a metal one, which, because it is a conductor, causes the syrup to heat unevenly. Butter the sides of the pot in which you cook the syrup to facilitate wiping away stray sugar crystals. Use butter instead of margarine to insure creaminess and freeze it if the recipe calls for adding it to the boiled mixture to "seed" it after it reaches the correct stage. Instead of adding final flavorings to the boiled syrup, pour it over them in a separate container to avoid agitating excess sugar crystals. Turn the fudge into a glass rather than a metal pan to keep it from cooling down too quickly. And you can cheat, or should I say "fudge" a little by choosing recipes that call for marshmallow cr8Ame which, while not really foolproof, are far more forgiving. And if worse comes to worse, you can turn disaster into triumph by simply using the failed fudge for something else, like topping for ice cream. After all, as Benning points out, because fudge began as an accident, if yours doesn't come out right, you didn't fail; you were just too successful for your own good!

Vassar Fudge

This is the modern version of the fudge introduced at Vassar in 1887. The recipe is adapted from Lee Edwards Benning whose encyclopedic work, "Oh, Fudge!" took many hours and more than 200 pounds of sugar to write.

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup heavy cream

2 ounces grated unsweetened chocolate

1 tablespoon butter, frozen

Directions:

Combine sugar, cream, and chocolate in heavy 2-quart saucepan and stir over low heat until chocolate melts. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook to soft ball stage (234-240 degrees). Remove from heat and place pan in cold water. Add butter and let mixture cool to 110 degrees. Stir fudge by hand or with electric mixer until it thickens and loses its sheen. Chopped nuts may be added at this point if desired. Pour into a greased 5-x-10-inch pan and cool completely.

Cookies and Cream Fudge

Fudge doesn't always have to contain chocolate. In fact, some of the earliest recipes referred to chocolate merely as a variation on plain white, or what is sometimes called Opera, fudge. This contemporary take on white fudge is one of several copyrighted recipes from Skaarup Laboratories, whose Internet site (http://homepages.skylink.net/~skaarup/fudge.html) is a must visit for any fudge fanatic.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

2 1/2 cups extra-fine sugar

5 oz. evaporated milk

12 oz. white chips

2 cups mini-marshmallows

1 1/2 cups crushed Oreo cookies

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Line a 9-x-9-inch pan with aluminum foil and set aside. Place chips, vanilla, and marshmallows in a large Pyrex bowl and set aside. Heat milk at medium setting until warm, then add sugar. Bring to a rolling boil on medium-high, stirring constantly. Continue to boil for 8 full minutes or until temperature reaches 235 degrees, but do not exceed 9 minutes. Remove from heat and add butter. Stir until dissolved (no more than 30 seconds). Pour hot mixture over chips, vanilla, and marshmallows without scraping sides of pan. Mix until chips melt. Add crushed cookies. Mix thoroughly and turn into prepared pan. Cool at room temperature. Chill in refrigerator prior to removing from pan and cutting into squares.

Pumpkin Fudge

This fudge would make a perfect treat to hand out on Halloween night. The recipe is adapted from "The Perfect Pumpkin" by Gail Damerow, who says that recipes for fudge are the most frequently requested type of recipe by visitors to roadside pumpkin stands.

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter

5 ounces evaporated milk

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

12 ounces butterscotch chips

2 cups miniature marshmallows

1 cup chopped nuts

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Place marshmallows, chips, nuts, and vanilla in a Pyrex dish. Combine remaining ingredients in heavy saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and cook to soft ball stage (234 degrees). Pour over ingredients in Pyrex dish and combine thoroughly. Spread into greased 7-x-11-inch pan. Cool and cut into squares.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column? Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.