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What is Fudge, Part 1: The Science, The Curious Name · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. My name is Ben. This is
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  Speaker 1: an interesting one today. I gotta ask, um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you hear the word fudge, what do you think
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  Speaker 1: of inferior chocolate? Here we go, Uh, super producer, Casey Pegrom,
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  Speaker 1: what about you? I like fudge, So I'm gonna say
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  Speaker 1: it is a not a superior chocolate per se, but
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  Speaker 1: you know it's on equal footing with milk chocolate or
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  Speaker 1: chocolate or any of the other fine chocolate products. That
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  Speaker 1: to disagree, my friend, I will I will say, like
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  Speaker 1: I do have experiences of going to like Helen Georgia
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  Speaker 1: and like getting fudged there and it's just too much.
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  Speaker 1: It's just too heavy and you feel sick for like
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the day after you consume it. So moderation,
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  Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I like, I like a little fudge now.
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  Speaker 1: And then I guess my thing is I'm known by
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  Speaker 1: the way, I just don't know what it is like
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  Speaker 1: is it's like it's almost chocolate, it's almost caramel, it's
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  Speaker 1: bordering on cake. It's just it occupies this liminal space
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  Speaker 1: of confections that I just can't quite wrap my head around. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that that's my take on fudge. It's also a fun
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  Speaker 1: substitute word for a naughty word aspect of it. It's funny.
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  Speaker 1: We Uh, we were supposed to start recording about a
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  Speaker 1: half hour ago, but we ended up just shooting the
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  Speaker 1: breeze about multiple things, including the most famous use of
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  Speaker 1: fudge as a curse word I think was in the
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  Speaker 1: Christmas Story. Uh. And you're right, I like the freeze
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  Speaker 1: liminal space here because I like, maybe like you k cy,
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  Speaker 1: I like many people associate fudge with stuff you would
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  Speaker 1: see in like a country store on a rural road trip,
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  Speaker 1: next to the pepper jelly or whatever. And I think
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  Speaker 1: most of us associate fudge with chocolate. But it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have to be right. There's maple fudge. There's all kinds
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  Speaker 1: of fudge in there, like a seventies kind of southern
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  Speaker 1: rock band called Vanilla Fudge. Oh. Absolutely, there is anybody
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  Speaker 1: that saw the Tarantino movie once by a time in Hollywood.
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  Speaker 1: The climax of that movie is a vanilla fudge. Oh
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  Speaker 1: that's the uh set me for you? Why don't you
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  Speaker 1: babe that that whole thing's somebody else's song, but it's
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  Speaker 1: their version, and if you go on YouTube and look
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  Speaker 1: up the live version, it is the most seventies thing
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  Speaker 1: you will ever see in your life. I love it. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we've got to stop the show for a second because
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  Speaker 1: we have to check out Vanilla Fudge. I can't believe
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  Speaker 1: someone beat us to that name. We're gonna have to
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  Speaker 1: come up with something new for our band. But while
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  Speaker 1: we're exploring that, we have to tell you, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know about you, guys, but I just found out that
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about fudge, like the history of fudge,
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  Speaker 1: the actual origin story, in the genesis of it. Fudge
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  Speaker 1: is first off, much more recent invention than I had thought.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys. And secondly, as we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna find today, fudge was in its heyday associated not
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  Speaker 1: with like rural country stores or cracker barrels or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: but it was associated instead with a bit of rebellion. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's true. I didn't realize it was such a relatively
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  Speaker 1: modern invention too. I assumed it was like developed on
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  Speaker 1: the prairie by the pioneers, you know, or even earlier
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  Speaker 1: than that. It's just I just assumed fudge should always
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  Speaker 1: kind of been you know, you you'd turn your butter
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  Speaker 1: and you'd make your fudge. But that's not the case
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  Speaker 1: at all. Um, let's start with a little bit of etymology.
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  Speaker 1: Fudge it wasn't the other way around. Fudge wasn't a
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  Speaker 1: word derived from the chocolate a thing. It was the
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  Speaker 1: other way around. Fudge was a verb before it was
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  Speaker 1: a confection around the seventeenth century. Um, it was something
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  Speaker 1: you would use to say, Oh, I'm gonna fudge that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, sort of cheat something to the left or
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  Speaker 1: to the right a little bit like maybe you've got
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  Speaker 1: some woodworking that you're doing. I don't know, just an example,
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  Speaker 1: and you need to fudge two pieces so they become flush.
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  Speaker 1: That's not a great example, obviously, I'm not a carpenter.
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  Speaker 1: Bank can you think of a better example of fudging
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  Speaker 1: something in the physical sense? Yeah, I think the woodworking
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  Speaker 1: example is good. I think that I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: accessible this is to our fellow listeners, but I think
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  Speaker 1: the three of all us have all fudged a little
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  Speaker 1: something in production where we maybe don't have the ideal
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  Speaker 1: audio we wants, but we're like we could play with
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  Speaker 1: this a little bit, so we've been able to fudge around.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because etymologists now think that fudge
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  Speaker 1: came from an older, obsolete term fadge, which sounds like
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  Speaker 1: fudge with a weird New England accent f A d
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  Speaker 1: G right, exactly, f A d G E with the
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  Speaker 1: silent e, which I still don't understand. One of the
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  Speaker 1: great mysteries of the English language, the silent e. But
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  Speaker 1: that's the story for another day. Yeah, the Oxford English Dictionary. Um,
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  Speaker 1: there's an article on the invention of fudge on Chowhound
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  Speaker 1: and they referred to that entry where it describes fudge
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  Speaker 1: or fadge as meaning to fit together or even the
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  Speaker 1: idea of something turning out well, the implication maybe being
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  Speaker 1: despite less than ideal circumstances. But the implication is more
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  Speaker 1: that it wasn't about a mistake exactly. But we also
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  Speaker 1: know that there is at least legend fudge legend uh
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  Speaker 1: fudging about the idea that someone was trying to make
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  Speaker 1: a batch of caramels. As I was saying earlier, like
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  Speaker 1: what is fudge and they ended up with fudge? Um,
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  Speaker 1: because fudge contains sugar crystals, and that's actually something that
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  Speaker 1: kind of is a no no in baking. For the
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  Speaker 1: most part, you don't want there to be sugar crystals
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  Speaker 1: because that can give a grainy kind of texture, and
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  Speaker 1: fudge is sort of the exception to that rule. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: It's these micro crystals of sugar that give it that
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  Speaker 1: firm texture, and they're small enough so they do melt
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  Speaker 1: in your mouth and they don't feel weird and sand
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  Speaker 1: like on your tongue, but they melt so quickly that
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  Speaker 1: it has sort of a smooth consistency. And I think
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  Speaker 1: that's part of my weirdness with fudge, is the consistency.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't act quite like chocolate because the crystals are there.
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  Speaker 1: It's a little bigger, so it has more of a
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, gloopy kind of thing. I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to nag fudge for anybody, but clearly, yeah, it's uh
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  Speaker 1: it's got almost a paste like consistency. Uh. For anyone
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  Speaker 1: familiar with um, the Middle Eastern North African food hulva,
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  Speaker 1: which is a popular snack, it's like that. Uh. That
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  Speaker 1: might not be the best comparison, but you're spot on
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  Speaker 1: with the weird state and importance of the sugar crystals.
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  Speaker 1: So in a previous episode, we we endeavored to clumsily
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  Speaker 1: teach you how to whistle, and you, guys, I listened
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  Speaker 1: back to that part. It's actually it was worth it.
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  Speaker 1: It was pretty hilarious. I made my kid listen to it.
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  Speaker 1: I held the phone up to her ear just during
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  Speaker 1: the mouth sounds part, and she just made the most
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  Speaker 1: offended face. But then she started laughing uncontrollably, because it's
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  Speaker 1: just it's I don't know, not to like talk about ourselves,
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  Speaker 1: but it is simultaneously disgusting and endearing, you know. For
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  Speaker 1: that one, I think it's okay for us to talk
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  Speaker 1: about ourselves this way, because we're not saying we did
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  Speaker 1: a good job. I think the fun part of that
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  Speaker 1: was the brilliant fact that none of the three of
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  Speaker 1: us pointed out that maybe we shouldn't try to explain
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  Speaker 1: how to put fingers in our mouths while we were
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  Speaker 1: doing it. But but still, it's pretty hilarious. So now
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna attempt to teach you the secret to cooking udge.
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  Speaker 1: This is with help from the Exploratorium. So now that
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  Speaker 1: you've mastered that weird problematic wolf whistle, it's time to
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  Speaker 1: begin your fudge career. Likenell said, you want these crystals
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  Speaker 1: to form. Forget all the other stuff you hear about candy.
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  Speaker 1: This is not applied to fudge. But you want them
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  Speaker 1: to form at a certain time, as certain temperatures. So
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  Speaker 1: if you want to avoid that gross kind of grainy fudge,
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  Speaker 1: it's not so much how you cook it as it
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  Speaker 1: is how you cool it. So you'll see a fudge
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  Speaker 1: recipe that will call for just in general, call for
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  Speaker 1: heating all the ingredients to two hundred and thirty four
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  Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. That's what's called the softball stage, where you
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  Speaker 1: can kind of mold it and then you allow it
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  Speaker 1: to cool, don't touch it, allow it to cool to
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  Speaker 1: about a hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit, and then when
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  Speaker 1: it hits one ten, that's when you start stirring. And
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  Speaker 1: you keep stirring and stirring and stirring as the candy
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  Speaker 1: becomes thicker and thicker and thicker. And what's happening is
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  Speaker 1: every time you stir, you're creating more crystal seeds, and
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  Speaker 1: you get lots and lots of tiny ones instead of
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  Speaker 1: the big ones. And I think that that goes to
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  Speaker 1: the texture you're talking about, right, Yeah, it absolutely does.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, if you stirch too much, you don't
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  Speaker 1: get the crystals at all, I guess, or there's so
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  Speaker 1: many of them that doesn't give you the same consistency.
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  Speaker 1: Don't stir enough, it becomes grainy and unpleasant. So it
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  Speaker 1: really is. I mean, honestly, fudge making is kind of
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  Speaker 1: an art, you know, if you have to really keep
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  Speaker 1: an eye on the temperature. Uh, it's not something that
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  Speaker 1: you can just go in and do without knowing what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing. So kudos to all the fudge stirs the
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  Speaker 1: fudge and I don't know what's what's the word for
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  Speaker 1: a fudge maker, fudge enthusiast. I like it. I like it,
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  Speaker 1: But you're right, Casey. I do think about, like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the little candy stores on the boardwalk in Savannah or
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  Speaker 1: in Hell and where you can get a free sample,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and you can see their whole assembly line
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  Speaker 1: for like making fudge and prelins or saltwater taffy and
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  Speaker 1: all that. That's definitely what I think of when I
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  Speaker 1: think of this treat. So yeah, like chocolate caramels could
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  Speaker 1: be seen as being kind of the progenitor, is that
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  Speaker 1: the right word or the precursor I guess to to
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  Speaker 1: to fudge, and those have been around since the eighteen sixties.
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  Speaker 1: We found a recipe uh in an eighteen seventy cookbook
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  Speaker 1: from Maryland, um very very similar process. Uh So totally
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  Speaker 1: understand the notion that fudge was created by fudging this
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  Speaker 1: caramel recipe, because if you end up with these crystals
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  Speaker 1: like we're talking about, which you would not want in
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  Speaker 1: a sticky, chewy kind of caramel, you would end up
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  Speaker 1: with a little bit more of a crumbly and substantial
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  Speaker 1: kind of like we said, fudgie. Really for lack of
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that's really it's the best word for it,
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  Speaker 1: because that's kind of what it is. Really nothing else
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  Speaker 1: quite like it, and that's one theory behind it. But
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  Speaker 1: we really still aren't quite a hundred percent sure of
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  Speaker 1: who truly invented the dessert. But we do know is
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  Speaker 1: where it came from, which is a college, Vassar University
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen nine two or thereabouts. Yeah, be not confused, folks,
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  Speaker 1: Fudge is marketed in a dishonest way. Fudge is a
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  Speaker 1: food of the elite. Okay, it's not. It wasn't a
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  Speaker 1: case where somebody was selling produce on the side of
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  Speaker 1: the road and accidentally also made fudge. No, this comes
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  Speaker 1: from a storied institution, like you said, Noel Uh. The
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  Speaker 1: earliest origin of it dates back to a document by
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  Speaker 1: one Immelin Battersby Heartridge. She wrote a letter describing her
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  Speaker 1: encounter with fudge. But she says this happened while she
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  Speaker 1: was attending classes at Vassar in the eighties eight eight six.
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  Speaker 1: But she says there was already fudge in play. There
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  Speaker 1: was a store in Baltimore that was selling it for
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  Speaker 1: like forty cents a pound, So we know it originated
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  Speaker 1: around that time, but we don't know exactly who invented it.
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  Speaker 1: For a long time, Heartridge was credited with inventing the
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  Speaker 1: substance fudge, but Vasser itself disagrees. They have an article
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  Speaker 1: in their encyclopedia called Vasser Myths and Legends that says, essentially,
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  Speaker 1: look Emmelyn Heartridge described fudge. That's the first known written
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  Speaker 1: account we have of fudge. But she in her own
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  Speaker 1: letter said that she got the instructions to make it
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  Speaker 1: from someone else. Well good on Vassar were trying to
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  Speaker 1: set the record straight and not just you know, co
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  Speaker 1: opting fudge for themselves, because we know that Vasser has
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  Speaker 1: a really interesting history when it comes to food. Was
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  Speaker 1: originally a women's college. Now it's a co ed private school.
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  Speaker 1: UM that happened in a nineteen sixty nine pretty recently.
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  Speaker 1: Was founded in eighteen sixty one by Matthew Asser. UM
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  Speaker 1: very remarkable architecture. Uh. There's a pub on the campus
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  Speaker 1: called the Mug for short, which is the full name
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: is Matthews Mug named after the the owner and founder,
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  Speaker 1: who is a brewer. And Vasser, as many of you
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  Speaker 1: will know, is located in one of my favorite cities
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to say out loud in New York, but Keepsie. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it's fun to look at because it looks like it
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: would be spelled poof Keepsie because it's p o U
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  Speaker 1: g h k e E p s i E. But
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  Speaker 1: it's Pokeepsie. It's a good one. I'm a shoeboygan man myself,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: but that's just because of our our recent episode. Um,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you know what, one day, forget it. One day, let's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: just do an episode, perhaps a listener mail episode, where
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: we just read off weird place names. I don't know
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: about you, guys. It's always hilarious to me when we
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: have someone right in and they're like, you know that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: weird cacophonous agglomeration of consonants and vowels that you tried
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to pronounce is actually pronounced papoloia And you're like, no,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: there's not a p in there. Those are all g
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: anyway proper names. So there's another one in like Boston,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: for example, that's you know, it looks peabody, but they
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: say it's pbody, pbody, pbody. You know, who's to know
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: unless you've heard it spoken, unless you grew up in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that area. But you know, our listeners are always super
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: respectful when they correct us, and we appreciate that. I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: want to do this before we move on. UM. I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: don't know about u k s here, you know, but
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: being a nerd, I spent the vast majority of things
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I learned I learned by reading, which doesn't help with pronunciation, right.
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  Speaker 1: Uh So I want to give a shout out to
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the person who wrote to us on our if you
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: guys are our wolf Whistle episode and said it's pronounced Boson,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: not boatswain, So we see, we hear you, thank you.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: It was all of us what that now. I don't
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: accept that. I reject that someone made a horrible mistake.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: They did, But I mean, what is a living language
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but a mixed tape of horrible mistakes that we all accepted.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: But it's a boat job. It's a job that takes
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: place on a boat. How can you take the boat
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: out of this boat job? It's yeah, it's weird. There's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: so many maritime traditions, you know what I mean? And
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: boatswain has pronounced boson. So there we have it. Which
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  Speaker 1: I learned something anyway, Speaking of learning, back to Poughkeepsie.
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  Speaker 1: So it's interesting because Vassar has this fascinating history with
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  Speaker 1: food and it exists before fudge. We would introduce you
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to one Ellen Swallow Richards class of eighteen seventy, widely
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: acknowledged as America's first professional female chemist. Not the first
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: female chemist, of course, just the first one who had
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the full time job doing it. And one thing that
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  Speaker 1: she is known for today was a book she wrote
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: called Food as a Factor in Student Life. This convinced
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  Speaker 1: the Boston School Committee to change its usual pol sees
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: about diet. She was so ahead of her time, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: even I think we've all even in recent years, uh
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: started to understand the link between nutrition and development, especially
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: in kids, right in elementary schools and middle schools. Uh,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: this goes on when you're in college. And she has
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a quote she went to the Women's Congress at the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: eight ninety three Chicago's World Fair and raised an excellent point.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you want to do the honors? Sure? Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting too because we know that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: there's a history of college students eating like trash. You know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the idea of like ramen and and you know Kraft mcarnie.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And she's pervades to this day because it's like a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: period where you don't really have a lot of money
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and you're kind of trying to let just make it
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: on what you've got. So definitely an argument that continues
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  Speaker 1: to be part of student life, right. Um. And she
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: was really ahead of the curve. So she says the following.
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  Speaker 1: A cow is worth to the state perhaps a hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars a year. A trained my mind, one hundred thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollars a year. A nation which so carefully feeds its
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  Speaker 1: cattle should take care of its young men and women
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  Speaker 1: with promising brains. In fact, the future of our nation
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  Speaker 1: may be said to depend on the feeding of the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: students now in the schools. Yep, yeah, and that's I mean,
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  Speaker 1: she makes an excellent point, and you make an excellent
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  Speaker 1: point as well. No, the only thing that I am
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: not with you on is that Ramen is amazing cheap ramen.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I I want to thank my college days and my
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like my traveling hobo days, for lack of a better word,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: for teaching me how amazing. Robin is you a little
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: sesame oil and that bad boy a soft boiled egg. Well, yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of course it tastes good. Bad I love ramen, but
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the sodium content is like through the roof of the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: noodles are deep fried, and you know, it's just like
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: there's really nothing of value and its unless you, you know,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sex it up a little bit and add a little
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: cabbage or a little vegetable or a soft boiled egg.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Like you said, that is the beauty of ramen. Though
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  Speaker 1: it's very adaptable. But I don't think that kids and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: dorms are doing a whole lot of that's true. Oh gosh, yeah,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that's true. And you make a good point about nutrition.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I just I just have to go to bat fork Man,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I missed going out to like a Ramen place, but
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you're right, You're right, And Richards has this interest in
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the science of nutrition right now. Historians believe this is
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: partially inspired by some classes she took with Vassar's professor
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of astronomy, Maria Mitchell. Maria Mitchell held weekly gatherings for
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: her classes at her own apartment, which was inside the observatory.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: How cool is that? And students really look forward to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: this time because they would have kind of a social visit,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: almost a salon, right, They would drink coffee, they would
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: have you know, cookies and snacks or and then they
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: would get to meet Professor Mitchell's friends, right, her fellow
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: intellectuals who included, uh, quite prominent activists and forward thinkers
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Lucy Stone Blackwell. This was
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a great opportunity for these kids. But there's a question
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: was were they there because they wanted to learn more
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: about the suffrage movement uh and abolition and other progressive policies,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: or were they there because Ms. Mitchell's cookies were better
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: fair than they could get normally. Yeah, it's a good question. Um.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Vassar has all these great resources like the encyclopedia we
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: talked about, and and a and a very um intense
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: archive that shows that Hannah Lionman, who's the college's first
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: woman principle, really was into this Victorian idea that women
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: are frail and delicate creatures and need to subsist only
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: on biscuits and bland t I'm I'm you know, editorializing
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: there a little bit, but the idea that they didn't
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: need any kind of robust flavors or anything, or any
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you know, hearty um food. They just needed the word
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is bland nourishment. That that was in the archives. Um.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And in eighteen sixty six she wrote this letter to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Vaster's president, and she complained that new students were getting
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: too many packages from home with unhealthy foods and treats.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Since she wrote this, the short supply and improper selection
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of food during the first months had the effect of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: exalting eating into a prominent theme of conversation and of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: perpetuating a habit I had hoped measurably to eradicate love
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: old letters of receiving boxes from home. Um, yeah, so
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that's where she was coming from. Boxes from home, by
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the way, is italicized so picked her it as occur word. Yeah,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of us who are
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: in college now or are planning to go to college,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: or have attended. Uh know that food is food has
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: always been more than just nutrition, right, Food is conversation,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: breaking bread not for nothing? Do some of the oldest
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: works of literature talk about the importance of eating together. Um,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: So these students, these kids, some of the best and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: brightest in the country, weren't content to sit around with
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of just uh, I guess the plane non
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: spiced food. Like we all look, I'll say it, we
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: all hear that stereotype nowadays about you know, quote unquote
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: white people not spicing their food. Not only was this
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: happening at vaster but they they had like a scientific,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: they're perceived scientific basis for that. I don't know, is
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that going too far? Like they explicitly say, bland food
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and lack of spices. Did you say that, no question
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: about it? Okay, okay, so they said that we're not
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: making that up. But anyway, in this fertile cultural soil,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: ellicit fudge parties begin. So these kids, who again are brilliant,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: they say, look, if we can't get the kind of
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: cool stuff we want, the kind of sweets we want
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: or something, then will begin making them for ourselves. And
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: this is very mcgiver and it's as dangerous as that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: dryer we were talking about earlier off air. That's an
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Easter egg for just the three of us. I guess
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: um they would take their their gaslights that they used
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in their dorms at night and they would use the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: gas from the gaslight where they would use spirit lamps
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: from the chemistry lab to heat up these confections and
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: they would like make fudge basically with the stuff they
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: could find in their rumor on campus. Yeah, at great
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: like physical peril to themselves and others. I mean, think
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: about it. They're using these very dangerous like lab items
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in a dorm arm that could easily be you know
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: what if they get into the throes of fudge ecstasy
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and they're like fudge drunk and then they knock over
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a Bunsen burner and the whole place goes up. You know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just speculating here, but uh, surely fudge drunkenness is
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a thing. But luckily it didn't happen, But it was
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: controversial activity. These were considered illicit fudge parties. Oh no, no, no, no, no,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: uh hold the fudge, hold the fudge phone. Casey just
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: pointed something out off Mike the Casey. I feel like
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: you have to you have to be on air. We
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: want to be transparent. You have you have admonished us,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and quite correctly. You know, it's one of those things
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: where we're we're rounding the thirty minute mark and uh,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the ending is nowhere in sight. So I think we
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: all know what that means. I think it is a
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: bifurcated podcast that we're that we're doing right now. And hey,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: not gonna lie. Uh that is perfectly serendipitous because all
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: three of us, I think, are out on vacation next week.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So hey, you gotta feed the content monster. And I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: think this one actually is worthy, much more so than
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I realized on the on the onset that there's a
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff wrapped up in in fudge, not literally
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: but just you know, historically speaking sometimes literally though, I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: think that's a good point. Yeah, we have so much
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: more fudge to get to. We have so much to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: sling there we go, we have we have so much
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: more fudge to unpack, to to heat up this. We
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: have not yet begun to fudge. It's true, so we
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: are going to make this a super parter. So please
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: join us for the studying conclusion to this fudge saga
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: on the next episode of Ridiculous History. In the meantime,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: hughes thanks to producer Casey Pegraham, Alex Williams who composed
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: our theme, and of course Christopher haciotis here in spirit.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Big Old thanks to Gabe Muisier, who I will I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: will title as the Emperor of Fudge in a tangential
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Wallace Stevens reference uh and big thanks of worse as
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: always to our pure podcaster Eve's Jeff Coke. While you're
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: waiting for part two of our continuing fudge stravaganza, why
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: not check out her show This Day in History. You
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: can also continue the conversation with your favorite or at
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: least favorite fudge recipes on the internet with the best
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: part of this show, your fellow listeners. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Check out Ridiculous Historians on Facebook and pro tip you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: can find us as individuals if you would. If you
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: would like to send us your best worst fudge puns,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: It's true, you can find me exclusively on Instagram where
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I am at how Now Noel Brown and you can
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: find me on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bolland hs W.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram where I am at
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Ben Bolland. Who knows. Maybe I'll try this mash potato
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: fludge recipe I found and post the results. You see
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you next time. Books. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
• 26:03
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• 26:06
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