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What is Fudge, Part 2: The Rebellion · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. You can hear a little bit of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a laugh in my voice because this uh when we're
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: recording this intro after we did a saga on fudge
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and realized it had to be a two parter. I'm
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: ben uh, and please listen to Fudge Part one if
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you don't want to be confused by Fudge Part two.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's true. You really need that chronology there. We got
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to set the groundwork for this fudge exploration. I'm Noel.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: By the way, here we go. Uh. The were considered
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: illicit fudge parties. Yeah. They would sneak into each other's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: rooms and sneak food into their rooms as well. Were
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to like fudge wasn't the only thing there. It's just
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the one most closely associated with Vasser because of the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: invention of fudge. But they would fry oysters like a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: single oyster over a hat pin, over the little you know,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the little lamp that you would use to illuminate your
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: room or to heat things in chemistry class. And then
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: they would hide from the teachers who are supervising them,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and they would stay up past their strict ten pm curfew.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: We have to remember at this time the students at
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  Speaker 1: Vasser and many other institutions were suffering from the very
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: strict sort of Victorian ideals, which were so hypocritical. The
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Victorian morals, we've all heard of them. So they had
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to eat land food, they had to go to bed
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: at ten. But these are college kids, so they're saying
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: forget that. And strange because we know that this stuff
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: became more and more and more popular, first and Vassar
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and then across the US, going back to Heartridge, the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: recipe that she mentioned became the standard for what we
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: call American style fudge today. It got so popular that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribute name checked Vassar and fudge in I'm
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: not going to do a voice, but I am going
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to emphasize the parts of the quote that are italicized
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: so you can really get the message home. They say, quote,
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  Speaker 1: Vassar girls not only indulged freely in suite of any
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: known variety, but they get up new recipes whenever they're sated.
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  Speaker 1: Pallets demanded change. Fudge may be eaten hot or cold,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: but it's never so truly delicious as when at the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: witching hour of midnight it's first removed from the gas
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: jet or alcohol lamp and served on bits of cardboard
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: or portions of the manicure set, bubbling hot to a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: group of maidens in night attire. That sounds scandalous, What
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a scene, What a bacchanalian scene, bubbling hot on a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: manicure set. That that is tittle lady. Uh yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing though. It really did start
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  Speaker 1: in the women's college circuit, and it started to spread, um,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Other female college students would start making their own fudge
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and just really pumping the stuff out and creating different
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: spins on it, and it began to become this kind
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of inside secret, you know, among the student body at
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: various of you know, women's universities and colleges. So the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: early recipes of it were considered to be a college dish.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It would be. I don't know what that means exactly.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I guess it means what it sounds like. Um. In
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: eight seven, the New York Tribune started to take notice
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and in a very similar quote to the scene that
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you rick out had been in that other one, Uh,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: they said that the confection was best enjoyed. Quote when
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a doesn't know more. Girls are congregated in a room,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: sitting on the sofa, cushions spread out on the floor
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  Speaker 1: in a mystic circle around an alcohol stove, from which
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the odor of fudge rises like incense. It's like an opium.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Dan Man. Yeah, like, oh yeah, I've got a pitch.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I've got a pitch. And you know, Casey, I want
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you to weigh in on this with two So what
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: if what if we make a film that's like the Craft?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You know, wait, you know what, forget it. It's a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: gritty reboot of the Craft, but it's it's it's kind
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  Speaker 1: of about occult, but it's mainly about students at Vassar
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  Speaker 1: illicitly making fudge. We can use all our fudge puns.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: We could say fudge drunk, you know, fudge enthusiasts, but
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  Speaker 1: we can still call it the Craft because it's the
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  Speaker 1: craft of fudge. I'm writing this down. Hang, well, can't
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: we just call it the fudge? Yeah? But I like
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the idea of craft. It's definitely a craft for sure.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Like we said, I mean to take some nohow and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: some uh and some really some kind of innovation here.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They were really taking what they had to available to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: them and making this stuff with these gas lamps and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: putting themselves in harm's way for the sweet, sweet taste
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of fudge. There is even a poem that came from
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the literary magazine for vass Or the vass Arian, which
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I love. What purchased us upon a chair to stir
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a saucepan held in air, which tipping pores upon our hair. Fudges, right, fudges.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's used in a plural sense. On
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: fudge was its own plural, you know, like one fun
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: piece of fudge, a batch of fudge. Well maybe they
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: fudge different recipes, you know, maybe different dorms had their
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: own like maybe some of them were making chocolate fudge,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: some of them were making maple fudge, etcetera. I want
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to go back to Casey. What do you think about it?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Fudge based grainy reboot of the Craft. I'm just thinking
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: about like how we how we bring the original cast back,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: because you know, you've got to have the new generation
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and like the lead roles. But maybe like Nev Campbell
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: is like a professor or something like that. I don't know.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: There we go, all right, there we go. So fudge
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  Speaker 1: has been outlawed, kind of like dancing and foot loose,
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  Speaker 1: you know, And and it's like a secret that only
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the old guard a k a. For Usa Balk and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: her coven no, and they have to secretly pass it
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: down to the new generation. And they gather sort of
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: you through whispers and stuff in in these like labs
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: after hours where they teach them how to make fudge
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  Speaker 1: and potentially do light it as a feather stiff as
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  Speaker 1: a plate of fudge. Yeah, and they also you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they chance, but it's like the recipe for fudge as
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  Speaker 1: they're making it. And then there's like a course, there's
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  Speaker 1: an old book that has the secrets, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: different recipes, and then they get discovered. Right, we could
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: throw in and then they have to take on the
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  Speaker 1: patriarchy because it's clearly them who are trying to shut
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: down this fudge making. Yeah, they want to can roll it.
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  Speaker 1: They're like kidnapping students and forcing them to make fudge
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: for do a little bit of a dune tie. And
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  Speaker 1: we he who controls the fudge controls the world. The
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  Speaker 1: fudge must flow, yes, okay, because those crystals are too.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Damn big. I'm smelling a franchise here. I think this
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  Speaker 1: is bigger than one movie. Okay, UM, you're welcome, producers,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna pretend there's a law that because
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: we came up with us on air, we have the
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  Speaker 1: rights to it. Anyhow, Frusa, please call us. Boy, do
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: we have news for you? Uh? And you know, speaking
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of fantastic segues, boy, do we have news for you?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Is something that a lot of other colleges felt when
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: they when they heard about Vassar's fudge fat. It's a
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: fudge fat, and it became a college wide fad. Vassar
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  Speaker 1: students were making. They typically had um one recipe they
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  Speaker 1: kind of styled off of chocolate, butter and sugar, so
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  Speaker 1: technically a chocolate fudge. But other colleges were making versions
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of fudge that at Marshmallows and students at Smith College
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  Speaker 1: made fudge that used molasses. And as other newspapers were
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  Speaker 1: describing this fudge fat, which is weird to say, um,
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  Speaker 1: as they were describing this fudge fat, they were also
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  Speaker 1: reporting the other colleges that we're getting into this. Remember
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  Speaker 1: we we also talked about this reminds me of a
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  Speaker 1: much more well adjusted version of the goldfish swallowing fat
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  Speaker 1: that swept all those colleges. Remember that I do that
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  Speaker 1: was a weird one. I would say this one is
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  Speaker 1: much more wholesome and less nihilistic and uh cruel, let's say, agreed.
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  Speaker 1: So as they were reporting this stuff, a triumvirate of
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  Speaker 1: colleges came to be acknowledged as like the fundamental fudge makers.
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  Speaker 1: And in a book in nineteen o nine called Chocolate
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  Speaker 1: and Cocoa Recipes, Uh, there are three different fudge recipes.
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  Speaker 1: They're all named after those three colleges. But we we
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  Speaker 1: made a promise in the beginning of today's episode that
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  Speaker 1: we were going to explore fudge as an act of resistance.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: What what do we mean when we said that, Well,
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  Speaker 1: we've kind of got into it a little bit already,
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  Speaker 1: just in that there was this very puritanical attitude towards
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  Speaker 1: food and the idea that that women should not snack
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: or should you know, it was pretty sexist when you
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: look at it now, though maybe coming from a place
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  Speaker 1: of goodness by this this woman who is the president
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  Speaker 1: of the university at the time, but yeah, it's like, no, man,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we like our bond bonds, and we like our sweet
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and savory delights. Hence the roasting of the oysters over
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  Speaker 1: the hat pins after that ten pm curfew, which was
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  Speaker 1: also a little bit intense, you know, like no one
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  Speaker 1: shall be out of their dormitories past ten pm. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Another dish that was very popular is something that I
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard about until recently in the movie Phantom Thread
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Welsh rare bits. Oh yeah, rabbit. But it's like it's
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: almost like a what is it, ben, It's sort of
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  Speaker 1: like a like a pudding, like a savory. It's like
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  Speaker 1: cheese toast times ten. It's like cheese toast times ten.
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  Speaker 1: And it has this great sauce go with it. I've
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  Speaker 1: made some. Once we're out of this quarantine situation, once
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: we're done with what has essentially been one long bottle
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: episode of our sitcom, then I would love to make
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you guys some Welsh rare bit of it. We're family show,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: so I'll say I have a kick butt recipe and Casey, yes,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I know, I still owe you that bulgogi. I'm just
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to. I have to cook it for you
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: when you're there. You know what I want to get
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: in on that, all right, Yeah, let's do it good
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: bull goo, But no, it's true the Welsh. I'm sorry,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I just I'm fascinated by this. I'm looking at pictures
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  Speaker 1: of it now, and it does look like you said,
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  Speaker 1: like cheese toast X because it's more of a fond
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  Speaker 1: type cheese that you pour over top of it, mixed
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  Speaker 1: with that savory sauce um and it's it's just looks
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like a delight. And yeah, the rare bit, it is
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to kind of trace the etymology. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I know that it is sort of a corruption and
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  Speaker 1: that sounds really intense of the word rabbit rare bit,
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  Speaker 1: just like a way it would have been pronounced in Welsh,
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  Speaker 1: and so it's spelled that way like a rare bit,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: but it definitely is meant to be interpreted as rabbit.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And there's other kinds like Dutch rare bit, buck rare bit.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And then you did a little research on this yourself,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and while I don't think we've been able to quite
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: chase down why it's called that exactly, you have some theories.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I have some completely unfounded theories, uh a k A
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: think that I think are hilarious and I I say,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: we go ahead and uh present to you this unfounded speculation. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So the term we know was Welsh rabbit in like
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the mid seventeen hundreds. So what if what if it
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  Speaker 1: was a term made by British people who were somehow
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  Speaker 1: trying to nag on or dis the Welsh. You know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: what if they were like, well, I don't know, are
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: they implying like Welsh people can't catch rabbits or can't
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  Speaker 1: afford them, so that's why it's Welsh rabbit, or like
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  Speaker 1: so dumb that they think rabbits are cheese or something
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: like that. Right, Yeah, I see where you're going with that, Ben.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I think we should have a segment on the show
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: called wildly Unfounded speculation or something like that. That's that's
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that's good now, I'm with you there, Ben. But it's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: interesting because Casey was even looking it up while we
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: were talking, and there really is no known etymology for
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: why that is used. So I think wild speculation is
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: about the best we've got right now, and that is
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: still better than absolute pseudo science, which is what was
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: used to attempt to combat the love of fudge at Vassar.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: It's strange because you know, it was a form of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: mild rebellion, and these kids were being strictly controlled and
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: cracked down on. And there was kind of a double
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: standard for them because male students at colleges were getting
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: into way more trouble. But health wise, you know, as
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I think most of us know, the century in the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: US especially was just riddled with terrible ideas about what
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you should do for your health, like yogurt enemas um.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Apologies Sydney teachers playing this in a classroom. Just check
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: out the Kellogg story as well as the idea that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you need to have bland diets. There was even a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: food writer, right st Roarer, who is today known as
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: America's first dietitian. He toured these colleges int five and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: he said, the scholastic standing of the students is held
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like it's more important than the practical side of their education,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: which this guy, by the way, considered learning how to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: be a wife and mother. So imagine this writer is
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: going to this place and saying, you know, my problem
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: with this college is that they're teaching kids college courses basically.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And then and this is a female writer too, This
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: is a woman st Roher. She also says that these
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: girls like fudge too much. And by the way, there
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: was this kind of confederation, I guess or consortium of
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: all of these East Coast Liberal arts women's colleges, and
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: they were referred to collectively as the Seven sister as
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Vassar was one of them. You also had Mount Holyoake, Smith, Wesley, Uh, Brent, Maher, Barnard,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and Radcliffe. Just to step back ever so quickly, um,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: but yeah, she had some really intense hot takes on
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: what was going on there. She said the scholastic standing
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of the students was held in far greater importance and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the more practical side of their education, that is, learning
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: how to be a wife and mother. Um. And she
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: referred to uh, the degradation of the health of female
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: students and attributed a bit directly to fudge. She says,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: in a little while, she referring to a female student
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: who was in poor health and a little while she
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is in the infirmary suffering from a bilious attack. Because
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that was another one of those kind of like quackery
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: kind of things, the idea of too much bile built
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: up and the humors which I almost think it was
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like that's almost like dark ages type type of medicine. Right,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: so a bilious attack, and she attributed this to dinners
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of fudge had overworked her liver in proper eating. With
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the addition of fudge, had the capacity, according to Roarer,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to quote kill the week and ruin the middling. Oh man,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So there's our there's maybe our villain, one of our
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: antagonists in our our gritty reboot of the Craft, which
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is of course expanding to a multi universe franchise. It's
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: weird because people on the other side of the spectrum
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: also didn't like fudge. So this right rst. Roarer is saying,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: fudges preventing these kids from learning how to be wives
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and mothers and you know, stick in the cookie cutter roles.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Society had a sign for them, but other people were
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: worried that fudge fuddled minds might hinder the academic progress
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of their students. So administrators were saying, hey, these kids
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: are not focusing on their studies. We're out making future astronomers,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: future chemist, future activists, and now they're all just turning
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: into um fudgie duddies or whatever they would say. They're
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: fudge fuddled. And one great thing about this is that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the opinions of people like Roarer did not seem to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: really matter. The students of Vassar and the alumni thought
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: it was hilarious. They made so much fun of people
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: who were anti fudge, and they did it through satire.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Is why we all love college publications. Right, Like, they
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: had something where it would be like, can it be
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that the Vassar girl has fallen so low? In my day?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: We ate our good, wholesome Hutton stew without thought of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: such proceedings destructive alike to physical and moral welfare. So there,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I think they're rightly mocking them, the way
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that a lot of radio stations or um college students
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: used to mock the concerns kind of conservative parts of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the US that we're convinced listening to bands like Vanilla
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Fudge would be a one way ticket to Satan worship,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and let's not forget too that. I mean, you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: there certainly was like a temperance movement for women. They
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: were not expected, they were not allowed, or they were
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: expected not to imbibe alcoholic beverages, but their male counterparts
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: absolutely did. And that was sort of like, you know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: there was this sense of man all we want is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: our tasty fudge treats. I mean, all the dudes are
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: out there swilling whiskey and spirits and going hog wild
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in the reads, and we just want to, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: roast an oyster over an open flame, you know, without
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: fear of retribution from the brass um. So, you know,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty reasonable request. And it was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: very much, you know, like something that led to this
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: kind of rebellious attitude. There's a quote from an account
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: from one of these college students, female college students, who said,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: we did not at college like some of the young
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: men drink whiskey or steel gates or shoot pistols at
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: policeman or club baseball umpires. Uh. And this was from
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a student that attended Vassar at and that that was
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: their thing. They had their midnight kind of fudge parties
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and and why should they be deprived of that? Uh.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: There's a book called College Girls, Blue Stockings, Sex Kittens
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and co Eds Then and Now by Lynn Peril, and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: she sums it up like this, that breaking those dormitory
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: lights out rules by meeting at midnight at an extra
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: philip of excitement and provided away for well bred college
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: girls to flout authority. Oh, that's one of my favorite
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: uses of philip. Okay, so they're using it to mean
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: something that is a stimulus or a booster to an activity,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But really it comes from this. Look it's it's yo. Right,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: we're an audio podcast. People can't see it. That's a philip.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: When you flick your finger like that. Oh seriously, Like
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: so a dollar filip dollarp little extra dash. Yeah, it's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: it's little. If you do that to someone in their direction,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure most people think it's kind of offensive. Right,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It's not a serious offense. It's not the middle finger,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: but it's something anyway. One of the questions here that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: we all have on our minds is what happens? Why
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is there no longer a fudge craze? Well, like so
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: many college fads, the fudge fad reached a threshold of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I guess you would call it an inndation. The thing
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that was cool became so accepted it was no longer cool.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And now college students are saying, well, people are just
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: associating the school I want to go to with fudge.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: One student in nineteen o six said, I once asked
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a man what he thought of particularly in connection with
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the girls College. The answer, of course was fudge and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that you know, struck her the wrong way. The writer
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Lynn Peril you mentioned earlier, Noel talks about how fudge
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: sort of expanded beyond the dorm room. Right. Yeah, it's
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that thing we talked about sort of how we associate fudge. Uh.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: We didn't know any of these sides of it, but
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: definitely are aware of the idea of these storefronts lining
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: various boardwalks, beachfront properties or even places like Niagara Falls,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Atlantic City. You know, you've got I love this. Uh.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: This quote from a piece that kind of sets the scene.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: From sidewalks outside candy shops, tourists would peer through plate
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: glass windows in awe as a mustachioed fudgeteers. There's the word,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, confidently combined that's of sugar, butter and milk,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: then guided the mixture into oversized machines that noisily churned
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: out delicious slabs of sticky goodness. Uh. And this is
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: from a National Geographic article actually by Robert Reid. Yeah,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and there you have it. So the next time you
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: see fudge, whether or not it's for you, it is
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a very rich food. A very dense form of sustenance.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Give it some appreciation. It has an origin story that's
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: pretty epic, actually, and I think fairly inspiring. And I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: want to note that for a long time, I think
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: we've all had those discussions with our friends, like, what
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: are some words people just don't like? Fudge is actually
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: one of those words. It's still not as unpopular as moist,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: which remains. Yeah, it's super weird to a lot of people.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. I was thinking, like fudge, sludge, drudge, grudge.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Fudge itself has succeeded despite its weird etymology and it's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: weird origin story. So I I'm not a fudge natic,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a fudge fanatic myself, but after this, I really appreciate
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the story of it. I appreciate it too, And I've
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: got to say, I I we we found a recipe
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in the research materials for this that I would very
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: much like to try. It sounds like a step up
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: fudge recipe that would really do it for me. Mamie Eisenhower,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: good Old Ike's wife, was a massive fudge fan, and
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: she made her own recipe called Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: which I liked and it included chopped nuts and marshmallow cream.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So um, no marshmallow Guy, marshmallow Guy, no more marshmallows
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: for you, man. Okay, I will eat all of Mamie's
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: million dollar fudge and then get sick and uh, potentially
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: never want to eat fudge again. So it'll be like
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a fudge Hey, I got I got a new one
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for you, Ben, a fudge Purge. You'll be Yeah, there
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: we go. Let's put the A in the in the franchise. Also, yeah,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: we'll watch out. Don't let your liver get overworked by fudge.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Don't get billious. This was a good episode. This was
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: so full of some cool words. Um, Casey, has any
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of this changed your opinion on fudge or you did
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: you have an opinion on fudge? He was he was
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: pro fudge your profile, Yeah, I was profudge. I'm still
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: pro fudge, but I know more about it now than
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I did before, So there's that. Oh god, I probably
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: should say this on air. But once I met a
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: dude who called himself Fudge, and it was one of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: those things where we were in our early twenties and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm probably not going to see this
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: guy again. All right, that's fine. He wants to be
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: called Fudge. And three years later I ran into him
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and he was like, my name is Richard, So Fudge,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: if you're out there, why did you give up the dream? Oh?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So sorry? And if you are out there, Fudge, let
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: us know, um, what happened? Why did you give up
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that ball? Or nick name? We want to know. We
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: want to hear from you, Fudge, nickname or otherwise. You
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: can reach out to us on all the usual social
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: media spots, Ridiculous History on Instagram, uh and Twitter and Facebook.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: We also have our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, UM
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: going strong. Uh. You can join that and get in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: on the conversation the memory. That's a good, clean fun
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: You just have to like name me or Banner or
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Casey or just say something that lets us know that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: you're not a Russian bot. And and we'd love to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: have you in the group. Yeah, and we always appreciate
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: hearing from you. I gotta say, the Facebook pages is
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: on fire with some pretty good jokes recently, and we
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: we sure appreciate it. Uh. Let's see, we always need
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to thank Christopher Rociotis. We always need to thank Eave's
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Jeff Coo. I mean talk about a dream team right.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: It's true thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: our research associate extraordinary Gabe Louisier. I said it that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: way today because it made it rhyme with extraordinaire um.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: What else we got? That's it? Yeah. May the fudge
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: be with you? Yes? Uh, Calue Clay, what a fudge
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: this day? I love it. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows,