Söta minnen

för att inte säga sliskiga. 

En barndomsvän och jag har nyligen återknutit kontakten — det är säkert 30 år sedan vi senast sågs. Om vi fortfarande har något mer än minnen gemensamt vet jag inte — men av sådana har vi desto fler. Hon skrev nyligen om den goda fudgen hon fick av oss — och jag som inte tänkt på fudge på flera decennier, fick lust att koka en sats och skicka  till henne.  Det blev en veritabel tidsresa. Att koka fudge tar sin tid, och eftersom man måste röra i grytan hela tiden ges ett utmärkt tillfälle till att tänka. Tankar som skickade iväg mig på tidsresor, mor och jag kokade ofta fudge till gottegrisar i bekantskapskretsen — så morgons huslighet fick mig att minnas vänner jag inte tänkt på, på många år. Och roliga minnen av improviserade kalas när fudgen aldrig stelnade (vi åt den med sked) eller när den blev grynig och torr (den slank ned ändå). Det var den självklara förningen, på utflykter, klassresor och enklare tillställningar, så jag kan utan överdrift säga att vi, på den tiden, kokade kilovis av denna fuskkonfekt. 

Hos Wikipedia kan man läsa:

An American-style fudge (containing chocolate) was found in a letter written by Emelyn Battersby Hartridge, a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She wrote that her schoolmate's cousin made fudge in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1889 and sold it for 40 cents a pound. Hartridge obtained the fudge recipe and, in 1890, made 30 lb (14 kg) of fudge for the Vassar College Senior Auction. This Vassar fudge recipe became quite popular at the school for years to come.

Word of this popular confectionery spread to other women's colleges. For example, Wellesley College and Smith College have their own versions of a fudge recipe dating from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Fudge-making evolved a variety of flavors and additives as it grew beyond its popularity at college

Och fudge har fortsatt att vara populärt nattgodis på universitet och andra internatskolor. Den som läser böcker som utspelar sig i skolmiljö, kan knappast ha undgått att läsa om dessa fudgeorgier.

The fudge party

Harrison Fisher

Så populärt godis fanns naturligtvis med i skolspex och skoltidningar. Följande verser skrevs på Vassar 1893:

What is it that we love the best,
Of all the candies east or west,
Although to make them is a pest?
  Fudges.

What perches us upon a chair
To stir a sauce-pan held in air,
Which, tipping, pours upon our hair —
  Fudges.

What needs more stirring than oat-mush,
And more still when we’re in a rush,
But what’s e’en sweeter than a “crush”?
  Fudges.

What subtle odor doth recall,
To artless minds that “long-owed call,”
On the sweet maiden up the hall?
  Fudges.

Den något kryptiska andra versen förklaras så här: 
 “It never tastes so delicious, however, as when made at college, over a spluttering gas lamp, in the seclusion of your own apartments.” The thought of long-skirted maidens balancing on chairs to heat pans over a gas mantle above their heads would make a modern safety-conscious teacher blench.

I "Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes", av Miss Parloa finns recept på fudge från både Vassar Fudge och Smith College Fudge:

2 cups of white granulated sugar,

1 cup of cream,

1 tablespoonful of butter,

¼ a cake of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate.

Put in the sugar and cream, and when this becomes hot put in the chocolate, broken up into fine pieces. Stir vigorously and constantly. Put in butter when it begins to boil. Stir until it creams when beaten on a saucer. Then remove and beat until quite cool and pour into buttered tins. When cold cut in diamond-shaped pieces.

Melt one-quarter cup of butter. Mix together in a separate dish one cup of white sugar, one cup of brown sugar, one-quarter cup of molasses and one-half cup of cream. Add this to the butter, and after it has been brought to a boil continue boiling for two and one-half minutes, stirring rapidly. Then add two squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, scraped fine. Boil this five minutes, stirring it first rapidly, and then more slowly towards the end. After it has been taken from the fire, add one and one-half teaspoonfuls of vanilla. Then stir constantly until the mass thickens. Pour into buttered pan and set in a cool place.

fudge (n.1) 

type of confection, 1895, American English, apparently a word first used among students at women's colleges; perhaps a special use from fudge (v.) or its noun derivative, via the notion of "insubstantial" or of something "faked-up" on the spot. The verb was used in school slang, and compare fudge (n.) "a made-up story" (1797).

'He lies,' answered Lord Etherington, 'so far as he pretends I know of such papers. I consider the whole story as froth -- foam, fudge, or whatever is most unsubstantial. ...' [Scott, "St. Ronan's Well," 1823]

fudge (v.) 

"put together clumsily or dishonestly," by 1771 (perhaps from 17c.); perhaps an alteration of fadge "make suit, fit" (1570s), a verb of unknown origin. The verb fudge later had an especial association with sailors and log books. The traditional story of the origin of the interjection fudge "lies! nonsense!" (1766; see fudge (n.2)) traces it to a sailor's retort to anything considered lies or nonsense, from Captain Fudge, "who always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies" [Isaac Disraeli, 1791, citing a pamphlet from 1700]. It seems there really was a late 17c. Captain Fudge, called "Lying Fudge," and perhaps his name reinforced this form of fadge in the sense of "contrive without the necessary materials." The surname is from Fuche, a pet form of the masc. proper name Fulcher, from Germanic and meaning literally "people-army."

fudge (n.2) 

"nonsense, rubbish," (1791), earlier and more usually as a contemptuous interjection, "lies! nonsense!" Probably a natural extension from fudge (v.) "put together clumsily or dishonestly," q.v. But Farmer suggests provincial French fuche, feuche, "an exclamation of contempt from Low German futsch = begone."

Dessutom är Fudge ett efternamn med anor från William Erövrares tid.