A delicious secret truth

A wonderful story about memories of making fudge. Printed in the Globe and Mail.


A delicious secret truth
A cherished family recipe lost and found. At the age of 12, fudge had taught me the virtue of patience.
by PETER DESBARATS

I was still in grade school when I made chocolate fudge for the first time. It was my initial experience of the magic of cooking -- the transformation of such everyday ingredients as milk, sugar and butter into something entirely different and wonderful. I loved the process. I loved the result. Everyone in the family loved what became known, particularly at Christmas-time, as Peter's Chocolate Fudge. I continued to make fudge throughout high school. I became expert in detecting that critical moment in fudge-making called the soft-ball stage. One Christmas season I must have been the only student in Montreal's Loyola High School, or perhaps in Canada, to include a candy thermometer in his Christmas list (and to receive one).
By then my limited repertoire in the kitchen included spicy spaghetti sauce, much to the horror of my Scottish-Canadian mother who practically fainted at the mere mention of garlic. Later, as a young adult aware of belonging to the first generation of Canadian males who cooked with flair and pride, I continued to expand my repertoire. The pages of cookbooks that my wife Hazel and I have collected over the years are filled with scribbled comments noting the dates and outcomes when recipes were first tried by either one of us. But somewhere along the line, the original chocolate fudge recipe disappeared. Gone forever, I reluctantly assumed.

Until last December when I received an e-mail from my cousin Mary in Lachine, Que. Mary is the one who always keeps me up-to-date on the latest jokes and funny videos circulating on the Internet. Her mischievous sense of humour hasn't changed much since my high school days when I baby-sat her and her younger sister Jill. This time, Mary informed me that, while sorting through some old memorabilia, she had discovered a tattered sheet of paper entitled Peter's Chocolate Fudge. Was it possible, she inquired, that this was the fabled long-lost recipe?

"That's it all right!" I immediately e-mailed in return. "Like coming across the Dead Sea scrolls, only more delicious. Let me know how it turns out."

I had recognized it at once. There was the half-a-cup of corn syrup added to the three cups of white sugar -- sweetness on sweetness. There was the cup of Carnation evaporated milk for richness. There were the three squares of unsweetened chocolate for pure, undiluted ambrosia. And there was the admonition to cook all these over a low heat until the mixture reached the critical soft-ball stage, the elusive moment that had evaded Mary on her first try. She e-mailed the bad news to me:

"I'm glad it's the right recipe but my efforts bombed. Kathy (a neighbour who owns a candy thermometer) didn't come home so I winged it with the testing in cold water. I was sure it was ready for the butter, etc., and the beating since I could actually form . . . well, a soft ball. But it isn't cooked enough, I can tell. It runs, if slowly, when I tip the pan in the fridge. Oh woe! I beat it furiously 'til my arm fell off well over 10 minutes later. I even went outside to help the cooling along as I was beating, so I don't know what's wrong. I'm wondering now if I can re-cook it. Well, maybe I'll try tomorrow. Nothing much left to lose."

I urged her to do this but warned her against re-cooking. I advised her to start over again and this time to stir the mixture slowly. This was the first secret of success that I had discovered. At the age of 12, fudge had taught me the virtue of patience. I counselled Mary against putting it in the fridge to set. As soon as it was taken from the stove, that was the time to add the four tablespoons of butter to make it glossy, the one teaspoon of vanilla for depth of flavour and the cup of walnut pieces which were the only optional ingredient but which I always added for that delicious subtle crunch in the depths of the velvety fudge. And then you had to beat the slowly cooling mixture until it was thick but not too thick. That's usually about the time when your arm says enough. On Christmas Eve last year, Mary's triumphant cry rang out across the Internet : "Hallelujah! A successful batch! . . . tho' I may have to have surgery on my arm for the beating it's taken in getting it right. Ouch! Well, it was worth it. That's a very good recipe, Peter! Thanks for all the tips and encouragement."

So thanks to my cousin Mary, Peter's Chocolate Fudge lives again but of course the recipe will have to remain a family secret. What's that you just said? You mean that I've already . . . Oops!

Peter Desbarats is a London, Ont. author, journalist, playwright and academic.