June 25, 2020 • 25 mins
The students of Vassar thrived despite a system of Victorian -- near Orwellian -- control. In a time when these college students were not allowed to have agency over their own diet, they rebelled, popularizing the confection known as fudge today. Other students at elite institutions joined in, and soon contemporaneous newspapers noted fudge as both a desert and a rebellion against prevailing social norms.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
for tuning in. You can hear a little bit of
a laugh in my voice because this uh when we're
recording this intro after we did a saga on fudge
and realized it had to be a two parter. I'm
ben uh, and please listen to Fudge Part one if
(00:44):
you don't want to be confused by Fudge Part two.
It's true. You really need that chronology there. We got
to set the groundwork for this fudge exploration. I'm Noel.
By the way, here we go. Uh. The were considered
illicit fudge parties. Yeah. They would sneak into each other's
(01:05):
rooms and sneak food into their rooms as well. Were
to like fudge wasn't the only thing there. It's just
the one most closely associated with Vasser because of the
invention of fudge. But they would fry oysters like a
single oyster over a hat pin, over the little you know,
the little lamp that you would use to illuminate your
(01:26):
room or to heat things in chemistry class. And then
they would hide from the teachers who are supervising them,
and they would stay up past their strict ten pm curfew.
We have to remember at this time the students at
Vasser and many other institutions were suffering from the very
(01:46):
strict sort of Victorian ideals, which were so hypocritical. The
Victorian morals, we've all heard of them. So they had
to eat land food, they had to go to bed
at ten. But these are college kids, so they're saying
forget that. And strange because we know that this stuff
became more and more and more popular, first and Vassar
(02:09):
and then across the US, going back to Heartridge, the
recipe that she mentioned became the standard for what we
call American style fudge today. It got so popular that
the Chicago Tribute name checked Vassar and fudge in I'm
not going to do a voice, but I am going
to emphasize the parts of the quote that are italicized
(02:30):
so you can really get the message home. They say, quote,
Vassar girls not only indulged freely in suite of any
known variety, but they get up new recipes whenever they're sated.
Pallets demanded change. Fudge may be eaten hot or cold,
but it's never so truly delicious as when at the
witching hour of midnight it's first removed from the gas
(02:53):
jet or alcohol lamp and served on bits of cardboard
or portions of the manicure set, bubbling hot to a
group of maidens in night attire. That sounds scandalous, What
a scene, What a bacchanalian scene, bubbling hot on a
manicure set. That that is tittle lady. Uh yeah, but
(03:13):
I mean that's the thing though. It really did start
in the women's college circuit, and it started to spread, um,
Other female college students would start making their own fudge
and just really pumping the stuff out and creating different
spins on it, and it began to become this kind
of inside secret, you know, among the student body at
(03:35):
various of you know, women's universities and colleges. So the
early recipes of it were considered to be a college dish.
It would be. I don't know what that means exactly.
I guess it means what it sounds like. Um. In
eight seven, the New York Tribune started to take notice
and in a very similar quote to the scene that
you rick out had been in that other one, Uh,
(03:57):
they said that the confection was best enjoyed. Quote when
a doesn't know more. Girls are congregated in a room,
sitting on the sofa, cushions spread out on the floor
in a mystic circle around an alcohol stove, from which
the odor of fudge rises like incense. It's like an opium.
Dan Man. Yeah, like, oh yeah, I've got a pitch.
I've got a pitch. And you know, Casey, I want
(04:19):
you to weigh in on this with two So what
if what if we make a film that's like the Craft?
You know, wait, you know what, forget it. It's a
gritty reboot of the Craft, but it's it's it's kind
of about occult, but it's mainly about students at Vassar
illicitly making fudge. We can use all our fudge puns.
We could say fudge drunk, you know, fudge enthusiasts, but
(04:40):
we can still call it the Craft because it's the
craft of fudge. I'm writing this down. Hang, well, can't
we just call it the fudge? Yeah? But I like
the idea of craft. It's definitely a craft for sure.
Like we said, I mean to take some nohow and
some uh and some really some kind of innovation here.
They were really taking what they had to available to
them and making this stuff with these gas lamps and
(05:03):
putting themselves in harm's way for the sweet, sweet taste
of fudge. There is even a poem that came from
the literary magazine for vass Or the vass Arian, which
I love. What purchased us upon a chair to stir
a saucepan held in air, which tipping pores upon our hair. Fudges, right, fudges.
(05:27):
It's interesting because it's used in a plural sense. On
fudge was its own plural, you know, like one fun
piece of fudge, a batch of fudge. Well maybe they
fudge different recipes, you know, maybe different dorms had their
own like maybe some of them were making chocolate fudge,
some of them were making maple fudge, etcetera. I want
(05:48):
to go back to Casey. What do you think about it?
Fudge based grainy reboot of the Craft. I'm just thinking
about like how we how we bring the original cast back,
because you know, you've got to have the new generation
and like the lead roles. But maybe like Nev Campbell
is like a professor or something like that. I don't know.
There we go, all right, there we go. So fudge
(06:08):
has been outlawed, kind of like dancing and foot loose,
you know, And and it's like a secret that only
the old guard a k a. For Usa Balk and
her coven no, and they have to secretly pass it
down to the new generation. And they gather sort of
you through whispers and stuff in in these like labs
(06:29):
after hours where they teach them how to make fudge
and potentially do light it as a feather stiff as
a plate of fudge. Yeah, and they also you know,
they chance, but it's like the recipe for fudge as
they're making it. And then there's like a course, there's
an old book that has the secrets, you know, the
different recipes, and then they get discovered. Right, we could
(06:52):
throw in and then they have to take on the
patriarchy because it's clearly them who are trying to shut
down this fudge making. Yeah, they want to can roll it.
They're like kidnapping students and forcing them to make fudge
for do a little bit of a dune tie. And
we he who controls the fudge controls the world. The
(07:12):
fudge must flow, yes, okay, because those crystals are too.
Damn big. I'm smelling a franchise here. I think this
is bigger than one movie. Okay, UM, you're welcome, producers,
but I'm just gonna pretend there's a law that because
we came up with us on air, we have the
rights to it. Anyhow, Frusa, please call us. Boy, do
we have news for you? Uh? And you know, speaking
(07:33):
of fantastic segues, boy, do we have news for you?
Is something that a lot of other colleges felt when
they when they heard about Vassar's fudge fat. It's a
fudge fat, and it became a college wide fad. Vassar
students were making. They typically had um one recipe they
kind of styled off of chocolate, butter and sugar, so
(07:56):
technically a chocolate fudge. But other colleges were making versions
of fudge that at Marshmallows and students at Smith College
made fudge that used molasses. And as other newspapers were
describing this fudge fat, which is weird to say, um,
(08:17):
as they were describing this fudge fat, they were also
reporting the other colleges that we're getting into this. Remember
we we also talked about this reminds me of a
much more well adjusted version of the goldfish swallowing fat
that swept all those colleges. Remember that I do that
was a weird one. I would say this one is
(08:39):
much more wholesome and less nihilistic and uh cruel, let's say, agreed.
So as they were reporting this stuff, a triumvirate of
colleges came to be acknowledged as like the fundamental fudge makers.
(09:00):
And in a book in nineteen o nine called Chocolate
and Cocoa Recipes, Uh, there are three different fudge recipes.
They're all named after those three colleges. But we we
made a promise in the beginning of today's episode that
we were going to explore fudge as an act of resistance.
What what do we mean when we said that, Well,
(09:21):
we've kind of got into it a little bit already,
just in that there was this very puritanical attitude towards
food and the idea that that women should not snack
or should you know, it was pretty sexist when you
look at it now, though maybe coming from a place
of goodness by this this woman who is the president
of the university at the time, but yeah, it's like, no, man,
we like our bond bonds, and we like our sweet
(09:42):
and savory delights. Hence the roasting of the oysters over
the hat pins after that ten pm curfew, which was
also a little bit intense, you know, like no one
shall be out of their dormitories past ten pm. Uh.
Another dish that was very popular is something that I
hadn't heard about until recently in the movie Phantom Thread
Welsh rare bits. Oh yeah, rabbit. But it's like it's
(10:05):
almost like a what is it, ben, It's sort of
like a like a pudding, like a savory. It's like
cheese toast times ten. It's like cheese toast times ten.
And it has this great sauce go with it. I've
made some. Once we're out of this quarantine situation, once
we're done with what has essentially been one long bottle
episode of our sitcom, then I would love to make
(10:28):
you guys some Welsh rare bit of it. We're family show,
so I'll say I have a kick butt recipe and Casey, yes,
I know, I still owe you that bulgogi. I'm just
I'm trying to. I have to cook it for you
when you're there. You know what I want to get
in on that, all right, Yeah, let's do it good
bull goo, But no, it's true the Welsh. I'm sorry,
I just I'm fascinated by this. I'm looking at pictures
(10:48):
of it now, and it does look like you said,
like cheese toast X because it's more of a fond
type cheese that you pour over top of it, mixed
with that savory sauce um and it's it's just looks
like a delight. And yeah, the rare bit, it is
it's hard to kind of trace the etymology. I mean,
I know that it is sort of a corruption and
(11:09):
that sounds really intense of the word rabbit rare bit,
just like a way it would have been pronounced in Welsh,
and so it's spelled that way like a rare bit,
but it definitely is meant to be interpreted as rabbit.
And there's other kinds like Dutch rare bit, buck rare bit.
And then you did a little research on this yourself,
and while I don't think we've been able to quite
chase down why it's called that exactly, you have some theories.
(11:34):
I have some completely unfounded theories, uh a k A
think that I think are hilarious and I I say,
we go ahead and uh present to you this unfounded speculation. Okay,
So the term we know was Welsh rabbit in like
the mid seventeen hundreds. So what if what if it
(11:54):
was a term made by British people who were somehow
trying to nag on or dis the Welsh. You know,
what if they were like, well, I don't know, are
they implying like Welsh people can't catch rabbits or can't
afford them, so that's why it's Welsh rabbit, or like
so dumb that they think rabbits are cheese or something
(12:14):
like that. Right, Yeah, I see where you're going with that, Ben.
I think we should have a segment on the show
called wildly Unfounded speculation or something like that. That's that's
that's good now, I'm with you there, Ben. But it's
interesting because Casey was even looking it up while we
were talking, and there really is no known etymology for
why that is used. So I think wild speculation is
(12:36):
about the best we've got right now, and that is
still better than absolute pseudo science, which is what was
used to attempt to combat the love of fudge at Vassar.
It's strange because you know, it was a form of
mild rebellion, and these kids were being strictly controlled and
(12:58):
cracked down on. And there was kind of a double
standard for them because male students at colleges were getting
into way more trouble. But health wise, you know, as
I think most of us know, the century in the
US especially was just riddled with terrible ideas about what
you should do for your health, like yogurt enemas um.
(13:21):
Apologies Sydney teachers playing this in a classroom. Just check
out the Kellogg story as well as the idea that
you need to have bland diets. There was even a
food writer, right st Roarer, who is today known as
America's first dietitian. He toured these colleges int five and
(13:42):
he said, the scholastic standing of the students is held
like it's more important than the practical side of their education,
which this guy, by the way, considered learning how to
be a wife and mother. So imagine this writer is
going to this place and saying, you know, my problem
with this college is that they're teaching kids college courses basically.
(14:06):
And then and this is a female writer too, This
is a woman st Roher. She also says that these
girls like fudge too much. And by the way, there
was this kind of confederation, I guess or consortium of
all of these East Coast Liberal arts women's colleges, and
they were referred to collectively as the Seven sister as
Vassar was one of them. You also had Mount Holyoake, Smith, Wesley, Uh, Brent, Maher, Barnard,
(14:30):
and Radcliffe. Just to step back ever so quickly, um,
but yeah, she had some really intense hot takes on
what was going on there. She said the scholastic standing
of the students was held in far greater importance and
the more practical side of their education, that is, learning
how to be a wife and mother. Um. And she
referred to uh, the degradation of the health of female
(14:53):
students and attributed a bit directly to fudge. She says,
in a little while, she referring to a female student
who was in poor health and a little while she
is in the infirmary suffering from a bilious attack. Because
that was another one of those kind of like quackery
kind of things, the idea of too much bile built
up and the humors which I almost think it was
like that's almost like dark ages type type of medicine. Right,
(15:16):
so a bilious attack, and she attributed this to dinners
of fudge had overworked her liver in proper eating. With
the addition of fudge, had the capacity, according to Roarer,
to quote kill the week and ruin the middling. Oh man,
So there's our there's maybe our villain, one of our
(15:39):
antagonists in our our gritty reboot of the Craft, which
is of course expanding to a multi universe franchise. It's
weird because people on the other side of the spectrum
also didn't like fudge. So this right rst. Roarer is saying,
fudges preventing these kids from learning how to be wives
(16:00):
and mothers and you know, stick in the cookie cutter roles.
Society had a sign for them, but other people were
worried that fudge fuddled minds might hinder the academic progress
of their students. So administrators were saying, hey, these kids
are not focusing on their studies. We're out making future astronomers,
(16:23):
future chemist, future activists, and now they're all just turning
into um fudgie duddies or whatever they would say. They're
fudge fuddled. And one great thing about this is that
the opinions of people like Roarer did not seem to
really matter. The students of Vassar and the alumni thought
it was hilarious. They made so much fun of people
(16:45):
who were anti fudge, and they did it through satire.
Is why we all love college publications. Right, Like, they
had something where it would be like, can it be
that the Vassar girl has fallen so low? In my day?
We ate our good, wholesome Hutton stew without thought of
such proceedings destructive alike to physical and moral welfare. So there,
(17:07):
you know, I think they're rightly mocking them, the way
that a lot of radio stations or um college students
used to mock the concerns kind of conservative parts of
the US that we're convinced listening to bands like Vanilla
Fudge would be a one way ticket to Satan worship,
(17:31):
and let's not forget too that. I mean, you know,
there certainly was like a temperance movement for women. They
were not expected, they were not allowed, or they were
expected not to imbibe alcoholic beverages, but their male counterparts
absolutely did. And that was sort of like, you know,
there was this sense of man all we want is
(17:51):
our tasty fudge treats. I mean, all the dudes are
out there swilling whiskey and spirits and going hog wild
in the reads, and we just want to, you know,
roast an oyster over an open flame, you know, without
fear of retribution from the brass um. So, you know,
I think it's a pretty reasonable request. And it was
(18:12):
very much, you know, like something that led to this
kind of rebellious attitude. There's a quote from an account
from one of these college students, female college students, who said,
we did not at college like some of the young
men drink whiskey or steel gates or shoot pistols at
policeman or club baseball umpires. Uh. And this was from
(18:32):
a student that attended Vassar at and that that was
their thing. They had their midnight kind of fudge parties
and and why should they be deprived of that? Uh.
There's a book called College Girls, Blue Stockings, Sex Kittens
and co Eds Then and Now by Lynn Peril, and
she sums it up like this, that breaking those dormitory
(18:55):
lights out rules by meeting at midnight at an extra
philip of excitement and provided away for well bred college
girls to flout authority. Oh, that's one of my favorite
uses of philip. Okay, so they're using it to mean
something that is a stimulus or a booster to an activity,
But really it comes from this. Look it's it's yo. Right,
(19:17):
we're an audio podcast. People can't see it. That's a philip.
When you flick your finger like that. Oh seriously, Like
so a dollar filip dollarp little extra dash. Yeah, it's
it's little. If you do that to someone in their direction,
I'm sure most people think it's kind of offensive. Right,
It's not a serious offense. It's not the middle finger,
(19:38):
but it's something anyway. One of the questions here that
we all have on our minds is what happens? Why
is there no longer a fudge craze? Well, like so
many college fads, the fudge fad reached a threshold of
I guess you would call it an inndation. The thing
(19:58):
that was cool became so accepted it was no longer cool.
And now college students are saying, well, people are just
associating the school I want to go to with fudge.
One student in nineteen o six said, I once asked
a man what he thought of particularly in connection with
the girls College. The answer, of course was fudge and
(20:20):
that you know, struck her the wrong way. The writer
Lynn Peril you mentioned earlier, Noel talks about how fudge
sort of expanded beyond the dorm room. Right. Yeah, it's
that thing we talked about sort of how we associate fudge. Uh.
We didn't know any of these sides of it, but
definitely are aware of the idea of these storefronts lining
(20:43):
various boardwalks, beachfront properties or even places like Niagara Falls,
Atlantic City. You know, you've got I love this. Uh.
This quote from a piece that kind of sets the scene.
From sidewalks outside candy shops, tourists would peer through plate
glass windows in awe as a mustachioed fudgeteers. There's the word,
by the way, confidently combined that's of sugar, butter and milk,
(21:07):
then guided the mixture into oversized machines that noisily churned
out delicious slabs of sticky goodness. Uh. And this is
from a National Geographic article actually by Robert Reid. Yeah,
and there you have it. So the next time you
see fudge, whether or not it's for you, it is
a very rich food. A very dense form of sustenance.
(21:29):
Give it some appreciation. It has an origin story that's
pretty epic, actually, and I think fairly inspiring. And I
want to note that for a long time, I think
we've all had those discussions with our friends, like, what
are some words people just don't like? Fudge is actually
one of those words. It's still not as unpopular as moist,
(21:50):
which remains. Yeah, it's super weird to a lot of people.
But I don't know. I was thinking, like fudge, sludge, drudge, grudge.
Fudge itself has succeeded despite its weird etymology and it's
weird origin story. So I I'm not a fudge natic,
a fudge fanatic myself, but after this, I really appreciate
(22:11):
the story of it. I appreciate it too, And I've
got to say, I I we we found a recipe
in the research materials for this that I would very
much like to try. It sounds like a step up
fudge recipe that would really do it for me. Mamie Eisenhower,
good Old Ike's wife, was a massive fudge fan, and
she made her own recipe called Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge,
(22:32):
which I liked and it included chopped nuts and marshmallow cream.
So um, no marshmallow Guy, marshmallow Guy, no more marshmallows
for you, man. Okay, I will eat all of Mamie's
million dollar fudge and then get sick and uh, potentially
never want to eat fudge again. So it'll be like
(22:53):
a fudge Hey, I got I got a new one
for you, Ben, a fudge Purge. You'll be Yeah, there
we go. Let's put the A in the in the franchise. Also, yeah,
we'll watch out. Don't let your liver get overworked by fudge.
Don't get billious. This was a good episode. This was
so full of some cool words. Um, Casey, has any
(23:15):
of this changed your opinion on fudge or you did
you have an opinion on fudge? He was he was
pro fudge your profile, Yeah, I was profudge. I'm still
pro fudge, but I know more about it now than
I did before, So there's that. Oh god, I probably
should say this on air. But once I met a
dude who called himself Fudge, and it was one of
those things where we were in our early twenties and
(23:38):
I was like, I'm probably not going to see this
guy again. All right, that's fine. He wants to be
called Fudge. And three years later I ran into him
and he was like, my name is Richard, So Fudge,
if you're out there, why did you give up the dream? Oh?
So sorry? And if you are out there, Fudge, let
us know, um, what happened? Why did you give up
(23:59):
that ball? Or nick name? We want to know. We
want to hear from you, Fudge, nickname or otherwise. You
can reach out to us on all the usual social
media spots, Ridiculous History on Instagram, uh and Twitter and Facebook.
We also have our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, UM
going strong. Uh. You can join that and get in
on the conversation the memory. That's a good, clean fun
(24:21):
You just have to like name me or Banner or
Casey or just say something that lets us know that
you're not a Russian bot. And and we'd love to
have you in the group. Yeah, and we always appreciate
hearing from you. I gotta say, the Facebook pages is
on fire with some pretty good jokes recently, and we
we sure appreciate it. Uh. Let's see, we always need
to thank Christopher Rociotis. We always need to thank Eave's
(24:43):
Jeff Coo. I mean talk about a dream team right.
It's true thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
our research associate extraordinary Gabe Louisier. I said it that
way today because it made it rhyme with extraordinaire um.
What else we got? That's it? Yeah. May the fudge
be with you? Yes? Uh, Calue Clay, what a fudge
(25:05):
this day? I love it. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
for tuning in. You can hear a little bit of
a laugh in my voice because this uh when we're
recording this intro after we did a saga on fudge
and realized it had to be a two parter. I'm
ben uh, and please listen to Fudge Part one if
(00:44):
you don't want to be confused by Fudge Part two.
It's true. You really need that chronology there. We got
to set the groundwork for this fudge exploration. I'm Noel.
By the way, here we go. Uh. The were considered
illicit fudge parties. Yeah. They would sneak into each other's
(01:05):
rooms and sneak food into their rooms as well. Were
to like fudge wasn't the only thing there. It's just
the one most closely associated with Vasser because of the
invention of fudge. But they would fry oysters like a
single oyster over a hat pin, over the little you know,
the little lamp that you would use to illuminate your
(01:26):
room or to heat things in chemistry class. And then
they would hide from the teachers who are supervising them,
and they would stay up past their strict ten pm curfew.
We have to remember at this time the students at
Vasser and many other institutions were suffering from the very
(01:46):
strict sort of Victorian ideals, which were so hypocritical. The
Victorian morals, we've all heard of them. So they had
to eat land food, they had to go to bed
at ten. But these are college kids, so they're saying
forget that. And strange because we know that this stuff
became more and more and more popular, first and Vassar
(02:09):
and then across the US, going back to Heartridge, the
recipe that she mentioned became the standard for what we
call American style fudge today. It got so popular that
the Chicago Tribute name checked Vassar and fudge in I'm
not going to do a voice, but I am going
to emphasize the parts of the quote that are italicized
(02:30):
so you can really get the message home. They say, quote,
Vassar girls not only indulged freely in suite of any
known variety, but they get up new recipes whenever they're sated.
Pallets demanded change. Fudge may be eaten hot or cold,
but it's never so truly delicious as when at the
witching hour of midnight it's first removed from the gas
(02:53):
jet or alcohol lamp and served on bits of cardboard
or portions of the manicure set, bubbling hot to a
group of maidens in night attire. That sounds scandalous, What
a scene, What a bacchanalian scene, bubbling hot on a
manicure set. That that is tittle lady. Uh yeah, but
(03:13):
I mean that's the thing though. It really did start
in the women's college circuit, and it started to spread, um,
Other female college students would start making their own fudge
and just really pumping the stuff out and creating different
spins on it, and it began to become this kind
of inside secret, you know, among the student body at
(03:35):
various of you know, women's universities and colleges. So the
early recipes of it were considered to be a college dish.
It would be. I don't know what that means exactly.
I guess it means what it sounds like. Um. In
eight seven, the New York Tribune started to take notice
and in a very similar quote to the scene that
you rick out had been in that other one, Uh,
(03:57):
they said that the confection was best enjoyed. Quote when
a doesn't know more. Girls are congregated in a room,
sitting on the sofa, cushions spread out on the floor
in a mystic circle around an alcohol stove, from which
the odor of fudge rises like incense. It's like an opium.
Dan Man. Yeah, like, oh yeah, I've got a pitch.
I've got a pitch. And you know, Casey, I want
(04:19):
you to weigh in on this with two So what
if what if we make a film that's like the Craft?
You know, wait, you know what, forget it. It's a
gritty reboot of the Craft, but it's it's it's kind
of about occult, but it's mainly about students at Vassar
illicitly making fudge. We can use all our fudge puns.
We could say fudge drunk, you know, fudge enthusiasts, but
(04:40):
we can still call it the Craft because it's the
craft of fudge. I'm writing this down. Hang, well, can't
we just call it the fudge? Yeah? But I like
the idea of craft. It's definitely a craft for sure.
Like we said, I mean to take some nohow and
some uh and some really some kind of innovation here.
They were really taking what they had to available to
them and making this stuff with these gas lamps and
(05:03):
putting themselves in harm's way for the sweet, sweet taste
of fudge. There is even a poem that came from
the literary magazine for vass Or the vass Arian, which
I love. What purchased us upon a chair to stir
a saucepan held in air, which tipping pores upon our hair. Fudges, right, fudges.
(05:27):
It's interesting because it's used in a plural sense. On
fudge was its own plural, you know, like one fun
piece of fudge, a batch of fudge. Well maybe they
fudge different recipes, you know, maybe different dorms had their
own like maybe some of them were making chocolate fudge,
some of them were making maple fudge, etcetera. I want
(05:48):
to go back to Casey. What do you think about it?
Fudge based grainy reboot of the Craft. I'm just thinking
about like how we how we bring the original cast back,
because you know, you've got to have the new generation
and like the lead roles. But maybe like Nev Campbell
is like a professor or something like that. I don't know.
There we go, all right, there we go. So fudge
(06:08):
has been outlawed, kind of like dancing and foot loose,
you know, And and it's like a secret that only
the old guard a k a. For Usa Balk and
her coven no, and they have to secretly pass it
down to the new generation. And they gather sort of
you through whispers and stuff in in these like labs
(06:29):
after hours where they teach them how to make fudge
and potentially do light it as a feather stiff as
a plate of fudge. Yeah, and they also you know,
they chance, but it's like the recipe for fudge as
they're making it. And then there's like a course, there's
an old book that has the secrets, you know, the
different recipes, and then they get discovered. Right, we could
(06:52):
throw in and then they have to take on the
patriarchy because it's clearly them who are trying to shut
down this fudge making. Yeah, they want to can roll it.
They're like kidnapping students and forcing them to make fudge
for do a little bit of a dune tie. And
we he who controls the fudge controls the world. The
(07:12):
fudge must flow, yes, okay, because those crystals are too.
Damn big. I'm smelling a franchise here. I think this
is bigger than one movie. Okay, UM, you're welcome, producers,
but I'm just gonna pretend there's a law that because
we came up with us on air, we have the
rights to it. Anyhow, Frusa, please call us. Boy, do
we have news for you? Uh? And you know, speaking
(07:33):
of fantastic segues, boy, do we have news for you?
Is something that a lot of other colleges felt when
they when they heard about Vassar's fudge fat. It's a
fudge fat, and it became a college wide fad. Vassar
students were making. They typically had um one recipe they
kind of styled off of chocolate, butter and sugar, so
(07:56):
technically a chocolate fudge. But other colleges were making versions
of fudge that at Marshmallows and students at Smith College
made fudge that used molasses. And as other newspapers were
describing this fudge fat, which is weird to say, um,
(08:17):
as they were describing this fudge fat, they were also
reporting the other colleges that we're getting into this. Remember
we we also talked about this reminds me of a
much more well adjusted version of the goldfish swallowing fat
that swept all those colleges. Remember that I do that
was a weird one. I would say this one is
(08:39):
much more wholesome and less nihilistic and uh cruel, let's say, agreed.
So as they were reporting this stuff, a triumvirate of
colleges came to be acknowledged as like the fundamental fudge makers.
(09:00):
And in a book in nineteen o nine called Chocolate
and Cocoa Recipes, Uh, there are three different fudge recipes.
They're all named after those three colleges. But we we
made a promise in the beginning of today's episode that
we were going to explore fudge as an act of resistance.
What what do we mean when we said that, Well,
(09:21):
we've kind of got into it a little bit already,
just in that there was this very puritanical attitude towards
food and the idea that that women should not snack
or should you know, it was pretty sexist when you
look at it now, though maybe coming from a place
of goodness by this this woman who is the president
of the university at the time, but yeah, it's like, no, man,
we like our bond bonds, and we like our sweet
(09:42):
and savory delights. Hence the roasting of the oysters over
the hat pins after that ten pm curfew, which was
also a little bit intense, you know, like no one
shall be out of their dormitories past ten pm. Uh.
Another dish that was very popular is something that I
hadn't heard about until recently in the movie Phantom Thread
Welsh rare bits. Oh yeah, rabbit. But it's like it's
(10:05):
almost like a what is it, ben, It's sort of
like a like a pudding, like a savory. It's like
cheese toast times ten. It's like cheese toast times ten.
And it has this great sauce go with it. I've
made some. Once we're out of this quarantine situation, once
we're done with what has essentially been one long bottle
episode of our sitcom, then I would love to make
(10:28):
you guys some Welsh rare bit of it. We're family show,
so I'll say I have a kick butt recipe and Casey, yes,
I know, I still owe you that bulgogi. I'm just
I'm trying to. I have to cook it for you
when you're there. You know what I want to get
in on that, all right, Yeah, let's do it good
bull goo, But no, it's true the Welsh. I'm sorry,
I just I'm fascinated by this. I'm looking at pictures
(10:48):
of it now, and it does look like you said,
like cheese toast X because it's more of a fond
type cheese that you pour over top of it, mixed
with that savory sauce um and it's it's just looks
like a delight. And yeah, the rare bit, it is
it's hard to kind of trace the etymology. I mean,
I know that it is sort of a corruption and
(11:09):
that sounds really intense of the word rabbit rare bit,
just like a way it would have been pronounced in Welsh,
and so it's spelled that way like a rare bit,
but it definitely is meant to be interpreted as rabbit.
And there's other kinds like Dutch rare bit, buck rare bit.
And then you did a little research on this yourself,
and while I don't think we've been able to quite
chase down why it's called that exactly, you have some theories.
(11:34):
I have some completely unfounded theories, uh a k A
think that I think are hilarious and I I say,
we go ahead and uh present to you this unfounded speculation. Okay,
So the term we know was Welsh rabbit in like
the mid seventeen hundreds. So what if what if it
(11:54):
was a term made by British people who were somehow
trying to nag on or dis the Welsh. You know,
what if they were like, well, I don't know, are
they implying like Welsh people can't catch rabbits or can't
afford them, so that's why it's Welsh rabbit, or like
so dumb that they think rabbits are cheese or something
(12:14):
like that. Right, Yeah, I see where you're going with that, Ben.
I think we should have a segment on the show
called wildly Unfounded speculation or something like that. That's that's
that's good now, I'm with you there, Ben. But it's
interesting because Casey was even looking it up while we
were talking, and there really is no known etymology for
why that is used. So I think wild speculation is
(12:36):
about the best we've got right now, and that is
still better than absolute pseudo science, which is what was
used to attempt to combat the love of fudge at Vassar.
It's strange because you know, it was a form of
mild rebellion, and these kids were being strictly controlled and
(12:58):
cracked down on. And there was kind of a double
standard for them because male students at colleges were getting
into way more trouble. But health wise, you know, as
I think most of us know, the century in the
US especially was just riddled with terrible ideas about what
you should do for your health, like yogurt enemas um.
(13:21):
Apologies Sydney teachers playing this in a classroom. Just check
out the Kellogg story as well as the idea that
you need to have bland diets. There was even a
food writer, right st Roarer, who is today known as
America's first dietitian. He toured these colleges int five and
(13:42):
he said, the scholastic standing of the students is held
like it's more important than the practical side of their education,
which this guy, by the way, considered learning how to
be a wife and mother. So imagine this writer is
going to this place and saying, you know, my problem
with this college is that they're teaching kids college courses basically.
(14:06):
And then and this is a female writer too, This
is a woman st Roher. She also says that these
girls like fudge too much. And by the way, there
was this kind of confederation, I guess or consortium of
all of these East Coast Liberal arts women's colleges, and
they were referred to collectively as the Seven sister as
Vassar was one of them. You also had Mount Holyoake, Smith, Wesley, Uh, Brent, Maher, Barnard,
(14:30):
and Radcliffe. Just to step back ever so quickly, um,
but yeah, she had some really intense hot takes on
what was going on there. She said the scholastic standing
of the students was held in far greater importance and
the more practical side of their education, that is, learning
how to be a wife and mother. Um. And she
referred to uh, the degradation of the health of female
(14:53):
students and attributed a bit directly to fudge. She says,
in a little while, she referring to a female student
who was in poor health and a little while she
is in the infirmary suffering from a bilious attack. Because
that was another one of those kind of like quackery
kind of things, the idea of too much bile built
up and the humors which I almost think it was
like that's almost like dark ages type type of medicine. Right,
(15:16):
so a bilious attack, and she attributed this to dinners
of fudge had overworked her liver in proper eating. With
the addition of fudge, had the capacity, according to Roarer,
to quote kill the week and ruin the middling. Oh man,
So there's our there's maybe our villain, one of our
(15:39):
antagonists in our our gritty reboot of the Craft, which
is of course expanding to a multi universe franchise. It's
weird because people on the other side of the spectrum
also didn't like fudge. So this right rst. Roarer is saying,
fudges preventing these kids from learning how to be wives
(16:00):
and mothers and you know, stick in the cookie cutter roles.
Society had a sign for them, but other people were
worried that fudge fuddled minds might hinder the academic progress
of their students. So administrators were saying, hey, these kids
are not focusing on their studies. We're out making future astronomers,
(16:23):
future chemist, future activists, and now they're all just turning
into um fudgie duddies or whatever they would say. They're
fudge fuddled. And one great thing about this is that
the opinions of people like Roarer did not seem to
really matter. The students of Vassar and the alumni thought
it was hilarious. They made so much fun of people
(16:45):
who were anti fudge, and they did it through satire.
Is why we all love college publications. Right, Like, they
had something where it would be like, can it be
that the Vassar girl has fallen so low? In my day?
We ate our good, wholesome Hutton stew without thought of
such proceedings destructive alike to physical and moral welfare. So there,
(17:07):
you know, I think they're rightly mocking them, the way
that a lot of radio stations or um college students
used to mock the concerns kind of conservative parts of
the US that we're convinced listening to bands like Vanilla
Fudge would be a one way ticket to Satan worship,
(17:31):
and let's not forget too that. I mean, you know,
there certainly was like a temperance movement for women. They
were not expected, they were not allowed, or they were
expected not to imbibe alcoholic beverages, but their male counterparts
absolutely did. And that was sort of like, you know,
there was this sense of man all we want is
(17:51):
our tasty fudge treats. I mean, all the dudes are
out there swilling whiskey and spirits and going hog wild
in the reads, and we just want to, you know,
roast an oyster over an open flame, you know, without
fear of retribution from the brass um. So, you know,
I think it's a pretty reasonable request. And it was
(18:12):
very much, you know, like something that led to this
kind of rebellious attitude. There's a quote from an account
from one of these college students, female college students, who said,
we did not at college like some of the young
men drink whiskey or steel gates or shoot pistols at
policeman or club baseball umpires. Uh. And this was from
(18:32):
a student that attended Vassar at and that that was
their thing. They had their midnight kind of fudge parties
and and why should they be deprived of that? Uh.
There's a book called College Girls, Blue Stockings, Sex Kittens
and co Eds Then and Now by Lynn Peril, and
she sums it up like this, that breaking those dormitory
(18:55):
lights out rules by meeting at midnight at an extra
philip of excitement and provided away for well bred college
girls to flout authority. Oh, that's one of my favorite
uses of philip. Okay, so they're using it to mean
something that is a stimulus or a booster to an activity,
But really it comes from this. Look it's it's yo. Right,
(19:17):
we're an audio podcast. People can't see it. That's a philip.
When you flick your finger like that. Oh seriously, Like
so a dollar filip dollarp little extra dash. Yeah, it's
it's little. If you do that to someone in their direction,
I'm sure most people think it's kind of offensive. Right,
It's not a serious offense. It's not the middle finger,
(19:38):
but it's something anyway. One of the questions here that
we all have on our minds is what happens? Why
is there no longer a fudge craze? Well, like so
many college fads, the fudge fad reached a threshold of
I guess you would call it an inndation. The thing
(19:58):
that was cool became so accepted it was no longer cool.
And now college students are saying, well, people are just
associating the school I want to go to with fudge.
One student in nineteen o six said, I once asked
a man what he thought of particularly in connection with
the girls College. The answer, of course was fudge and
(20:20):
that you know, struck her the wrong way. The writer
Lynn Peril you mentioned earlier, Noel talks about how fudge
sort of expanded beyond the dorm room. Right. Yeah, it's
that thing we talked about sort of how we associate fudge. Uh.
We didn't know any of these sides of it, but
definitely are aware of the idea of these storefronts lining
(20:43):
various boardwalks, beachfront properties or even places like Niagara Falls,
Atlantic City. You know, you've got I love this. Uh.
This quote from a piece that kind of sets the scene.
From sidewalks outside candy shops, tourists would peer through plate
glass windows in awe as a mustachioed fudgeteers. There's the word,
by the way, confidently combined that's of sugar, butter and milk,
(21:07):
then guided the mixture into oversized machines that noisily churned
out delicious slabs of sticky goodness. Uh. And this is
from a National Geographic article actually by Robert Reid. Yeah,
and there you have it. So the next time you
see fudge, whether or not it's for you, it is
a very rich food. A very dense form of sustenance.
(21:29):
Give it some appreciation. It has an origin story that's
pretty epic, actually, and I think fairly inspiring. And I
want to note that for a long time, I think
we've all had those discussions with our friends, like, what
are some words people just don't like? Fudge is actually
one of those words. It's still not as unpopular as moist,
(21:50):
which remains. Yeah, it's super weird to a lot of people.
But I don't know. I was thinking, like fudge, sludge, drudge, grudge.
Fudge itself has succeeded despite its weird etymology and it's
weird origin story. So I I'm not a fudge natic,
a fudge fanatic myself, but after this, I really appreciate
(22:11):
the story of it. I appreciate it too, And I've
got to say, I I we we found a recipe
in the research materials for this that I would very
much like to try. It sounds like a step up
fudge recipe that would really do it for me. Mamie Eisenhower,
good Old Ike's wife, was a massive fudge fan, and
she made her own recipe called Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge,
(22:32):
which I liked and it included chopped nuts and marshmallow cream.
So um, no marshmallow Guy, marshmallow Guy, no more marshmallows
for you, man. Okay, I will eat all of Mamie's
million dollar fudge and then get sick and uh, potentially
never want to eat fudge again. So it'll be like
(22:53):
a fudge Hey, I got I got a new one
for you, Ben, a fudge Purge. You'll be Yeah, there
we go. Let's put the A in the in the franchise. Also, yeah,
we'll watch out. Don't let your liver get overworked by fudge.
Don't get billious. This was a good episode. This was
so full of some cool words. Um, Casey, has any
(23:15):
of this changed your opinion on fudge or you did
you have an opinion on fudge? He was he was
pro fudge your profile, Yeah, I was profudge. I'm still
pro fudge, but I know more about it now than
I did before, So there's that. Oh god, I probably
should say this on air. But once I met a
dude who called himself Fudge, and it was one of
those things where we were in our early twenties and
(23:38):
I was like, I'm probably not going to see this
guy again. All right, that's fine. He wants to be
called Fudge. And three years later I ran into him
and he was like, my name is Richard, So Fudge,
if you're out there, why did you give up the dream? Oh?
So sorry? And if you are out there, Fudge, let
us know, um, what happened? Why did you give up
(23:59):
that ball? Or nick name? We want to know. We
want to hear from you, Fudge, nickname or otherwise. You
can reach out to us on all the usual social
media spots, Ridiculous History on Instagram, uh and Twitter and Facebook.
We also have our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, UM
going strong. Uh. You can join that and get in
on the conversation the memory. That's a good, clean fun
(24:21):
You just have to like name me or Banner or
Casey or just say something that lets us know that
you're not a Russian bot. And and we'd love to
have you in the group. Yeah, and we always appreciate
hearing from you. I gotta say, the Facebook pages is
on fire with some pretty good jokes recently, and we
we sure appreciate it. Uh. Let's see, we always need
to thank Christopher Rociotis. We always need to thank Eave's
(24:43):
Jeff Coo. I mean talk about a dream team right.
It's true thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
our research associate extraordinary Gabe Louisier. I said it that
way today because it made it rhyme with extraordinaire um.
What else we got? That's it? Yeah. May the fudge
be with you? Yes? Uh, Calue Clay, what a fudge
(25:05):
this day? I love it. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
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