Fudge is for Weirdos

It’s that time of year when our office is inundated with sweets and chocolates of all shapes and sizes. Some of my office mates take the opportunity to expand their palate for all things chocolate, some squirrel things home for their families and I like to see who the weirdos are who actually, willingly, choose fudge.

Until I started writing this, I’ll confess I wasn’t 100% sure what the ingredients were in fudge. I knew there was mountains of refined white sugar, because that’s really all fudge tastes like (and that’s when it’s good fudge) but the others? I assumed maybe butter or some milk but it was beyond me how these three ingredients—which can make such wonderful concoctions, can get together and make something that’s both boring and annoying at the same time.

The answer lies in the olden days, fudge’s heyday. While Laura Ingalls (a major fudge lover) may have us convinced that growing up on a little house on the prairie was idyllic, the truth is it sucked. Insulation was atrocious, people got things like the measles and smallpox all the time and race relations weren’t exactly stellar. The positives? Michael Landon playing the fiddle and, occasionally, fudge.

It’s old fashioned, you say—what’s wrong with that? Sadly, fudge has actually gotten worse since the good ‘ol days because now it’s common to add corn syrup to help prevent crystallization. So it’s the worst of the old and the new, like a horse-drawn carriage that still emits exhaust. 

So let’s just do away with fudge once and for all. Sure, it’s better than getting diphtheria. But just barely.