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May 12 is National Nutty Fudge Day

May 12, 2025/0 Comments/in May

Today is National Nutty Fudge Day. Where did this tasty treat originate, and how did it get its name?

The creation of American-style chocolate fudge is often credited to student Emelyn Hartridge and her Vassar Fudge recipe. She later revealed in a letter, preserved in the Vassar College Archives, that she had cheated:

Fudge, as I first knew it, was first made in Baltimore by a cousin of a school mate of mine. It was sold in 1886 in a grocery store for 40 cents a pound and my brother Julian bought me my first box. … I secured the recipe and in my first year at Vassar I made it there — and in 1888 I made 30 pounds for the Senior Auction, its real introduction to the college, I think.

Miss Hartridge neglected to name the school chum, her cousin, or the store that sold it in Baltimore. The paper trail ends there, so we’re unable to determine who invented fudge, or at least its chocolate incarnation. Was it a happy accident, a confectionery miracle, or a product of diligent trial and error? The world may never know.

It’s also unclear how fudge earned its name. Delving into the history of the word reveals no easy answers. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the use of fudge as a verb meaning to “put together clumsily or dishonestly” dates to 1771. The word itself may have derived from fadge, “to make suit or fit,” used since the 1570s.

In 1664, Samuel Pepys, whose diaries are used by scholars to illuminate the English Restoration period, wrote of Captain Fudge, a merchant seaman he had engaged to take goods to Tangier before the discovery of his “knavery and neglect.”

After finding the condition of the ship, no master, not above four men, and many ship’s provisions, sayls, and other things wanting, I went back and called upon Fudge, whom I found like a lying rogue unready to go on board, but I did so jeer him that I made him get every thing ready….I confess I am at a real trouble for fear the rogue should not do his work, and I come to shame and losse of the money I did hope justly to have got by it.

We don’t hear of Captain Fudge again, so perhaps he acquitted himself well. But is he the reason “fudge” became a derogatory verb? A pamphlet called Remarks on the Navy, printed in 1700, had this to say:

There was, sir, in our time, one Captain Fudge, commander of a merchantman, who upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his ship was, always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies; so much that now, aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, ‘You fudge it!’

It seems possible that a seaman derelict in his duties may have influenced the English language. As for who invented delicious, sugary fudge: Who cares? Let’s eat some and call it a day. (Well, it is already a day.) If you’re not a fan of nuts, hang in there. National Fudge Day is June 16th!

Happy National Nutty Fudge Day!

May 8 is Have a Coke Day

May 7, 2025/0 Comments/in May

John S. Pemberton

Today is Have a Coke Day. The first glass was sold for five cents at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, GA, on May 8, 1886. The story of one of the most popular beverages on Earth began at the end of the American Civil War.

Confederate officer and Freemason John Stith Pemberton was slashed across the chest by a Union soldier’s saber and treated with morphine, to which he became addicted. When he returned after the war to his job as a druggist, he became obsessed with finding a substitute.

In 1885, he formulated French Wine Coca, using coca leaves and caffeine-rich kola nuts. When the mixture of cocaine and alcohol was ingested, it created a third substance called cocaethylene, which heightened the euphoria experienced from the use of cocaine alone. This may be the first successful attempt to “tighten the buzz.”

But Pemberton didn’t invent the drink himself; he used the two-year-old formula of a Parisian chemist named Angelo Mariani, whose Vin Mariani was so beloved that Pope Leo XIII awarded him a gold medal.

Pemberton marketed his version as a nerve tonic ideal for “scientists, scholars, poets, divines, lawyers, physicians, and others devoted to extreme mental exertion” as well as “a most wonderful invigorator of the sexual organs” and a cure for morphine addiction.

When early prohibition laws were passed in Atlanta, he removed the alcohol and developed Coca-Cola as a patent medicine to be mixed at pharmacy soda fountains, which were popular because of the belief that carbonated water was good for health.

Not long after Coca-Cola’s debut, Pemberton became ill. Ironically, he was nearly bankrupt due to the high cost of his ongoing morphine addiction; as a result, he began to sell the rights to his formula but tried to retain a share of ownership to pass on to his son, Charles. But his son wanted the money instead, so they sold what was left to business partner Asa Candler for $300.

John Pemberton died of stomach cancer on August 16, 1888, at age 57. Charles attempted to sell and popularize an alternative to his father’s formula but died six years later of opium addiction.

So, happy Have a Coke Day . . . I guess?

February 8 is National Girl Scout Cookie Day

February 8, 2022/0 Comments/in February, Holidays by Month

National Girl Scout Cookie Day Worldwide Weird Holidays

A “Money Counts” merit badge? I guess greed really is good.

The first National Girl Scout Cookie Day was celebrated on February 8, 2013, created to “highlight the real purpose of the $790-million cookie program, which is to teach girls five essential skills: goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics, and people skills.”

It appears not everyone buys into GSblog’s statement that cookie fans should order boxes “in honor of their success in running the largest girl-led business enterprise in the world.”

While researching this seemingly sweet and innocent holiday, I discovered a groundswell of belief that these cookie pushers have darker purposes. I found it in, of all places, The Washington Post, in the comment section of an article about how supply chain problems are affecting the production of Girl Scout cookies.

For context, a top article that day stated Biden’s White House would distribute 400 million free N95 masks to help control the spread of COVID-19, which continues to ravage Earth’s populace abetted by a concurrent plague of ignorance.

Another story detailed how AT&T and Verizon agreed to limit their rollout of new high-speed 5G networks near airports due to their potential to interfere with “airplane safety technology.” Turns out conspiracy theorists who shriek that 5G transmits COVID-19 simply lack imagination. For my money, dying in a plane crash because some idiot is checking his phone for up-to-the-minute health advice from Joe Rogan is way scarier. (Because of course those same folks will use 5G with no sense of irony. It’s faster.)

I normally stay away from comment boards for reasons anyone who doesn’t enjoy a headlong plunge down a manhole will understand. But a story about cookies, one that mentions Adventurefuls, the new “brownie-inspired cookies with caramel flavored crème and a hint of sea salt” seemed like a low-stakes issue. (I was a Girl Scout once. I never earned a merit badge and quit owing 20¢ in dues. I shudder to think how much interest has accrued.) So I looked at the comments, curious to read some lighthearted reminiscences.

When the first few seemed to equate Girl Scout cookies with crimes against humanity, I was intrigued, lured as always by the siren song of absurdity accompanied by a chorus of achingly earnest concern.

There were comments about sexism, racism, exploitation of minors, virulent consumerism, and environmental catastrophe. I enjoyed the ones that complained the cookies didn’t taste right and there were fewer in a box, apparently unhappy they weren’t provided more lousy cookies to hate-eat. Many mentioned the use of high fructose corn syrup in parallel with these concerns. (That assertion, at least, is untrue.) So I was primed to find that annoying when I read this:

I stopped buying Girl Scout cookies when they started using questionable ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and palm oil, the impacts of which are counter to the spirit of scouting, as I understand it. Palm oil, in particular, is the product of deforestation and threatens species like orangutans. As cheap as it is, I imagine the importation of it would be tied up at some of these ports and I’m not losing sleep over this type of supply chain issue.

These cookies aren’t about supporting Girl Scouts, but industries and interests behind it.

I responded:

Palm oil, yes. This needs to be phased out of everything. But it is difficult to engineer the same texture and flavors without it. That’s not an excuse but these cookies are like Proust’s madeleine. They take us back to our youth and we expect them to taste the same.

But they no longer contain high fructose corn syrup. Of course, it’s easy to hack the sugar shown in the ingredients by listing it in its individual forms to keep the blanket term “sugar” from being one of the first three ingredients.

And, for the love of Pete, of course, the makers and importers profit from it. Some of the profits do benefit the Girl Scouts organization, though. Everything we touch, wear, watch, eat, and drive benefits some corporate fat cats somewhere. That doesn’t make it right but we have to choose which things we rail against, don’t we? Otherwise, we’d be rocking in a corner, unable to do anything because of its potential butterfly effect.

I have to decide what I’m going to focus on and realize that my choices have consequences. And, consequently, I’ve spent the last ten minutes writing about how cookies are not going to make my list of corporate greed-head evils. So shame on me, I guess.

Now I’m going to go buy cookies from the Girl Scouts of Greater NY’s Troop 6000, which serves the NYC shelter system. I found it through a link on goodmorningamerica.com.

Reading this again just now, I can see how mild the original comment was. I am reminded once again of why I should avoid comment sections; I can huff up so much fake outrage that I get high on it and fancy myself a balancing force of sarcasm.

I did place an order. The Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos are just as I remember them. The Samoas were a disappointment only because Keebler makes a superior (alleged) dupe I’ve been eating for years. The Adventurefuls have “sugar” as the main ingredient and just don’t taste great, in my opinion. And, yes, I still ate the whole box.

Happy National Girl Scout Cookie Day!

January 22 is National Hot Sauce Day

January 22, 2020/0 Comments/in Holidays by Month, January

Today is National Hot Sauce Day. It celebrates the birthday in 1865 of Wilbur Scoville, who created a method to determine a pepper’s spiciness that is still in use today.

Scoville, an American chemist, devised the system in 1912. It measures the concentration of capsaicin, the active component that gives chilies their spicy taste, using Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Ratings range from 0 for a bell pepper to 16,000,000 for pure capsaicin.

Capsaicin content, which causes a burning sensation when it comes in contact with any tissue, is measured by dissolving a pepper in alcohol to extract its capsaicin oil, then diluting the oil in sugar water.

If a panel of five testers detects any spiciness, the mixture is diluted again until three of the five cannot discern any hotness. Heat level is measured by how many dilutions are necessary. Every instance increases the SHU, since hotter chilies must be weakened many times for no heat to be detected.

In 2013, The Guinness World Record for hottest chili pepper went to the Carolina Reaper, a cross between a ghost pepper and a red habanero created by Ed Currie of the aptly named PuckerButt Pepper Company. The Reaper’s official heat level is 1,569,300 SHU but ranges up to 2,200,000. (By comparison, Tabasco sauce has a level 0f 2,500 to 5,000.)

The Reaper was bested in 2017 by Dragon’s Breath, which clocked in at 2,480,000 SHU. Currie surged back with Pepper X, a Frankenstein’s monster at 3,180,000 SHU. Unlike Dragon’s Breath, which will only be used for medicinal purposes, Pepper X is available as a sauce dubbed The Last Dab.

Studies have shown that heat levels evoke the same pain response in spice lovers and haters and everyone in between. So why do so many of us like it? Could it predict other risk-taking behaviors? Check out this TED Ed lesson for answers.

For some serious fun, watch The Hot Ones challenge celebrities, actors, and musicians to eat ever-hotter sauces as they chat. Dave Grohl is especially awesome. But nothing compares to okurrr’s video contrasting Lorde‘s pure enjoyment with others’ abject suffering. It’s guaranteed to make you smile.

Then buy the same sauces from Heatonist to stage your own challenge for friends or maybe people you don’t like so much. There’s even a game called Truth or Dab you can use if you’re into that retro board game kind of thing.

I went to Heatonist’s shop in NYC’s Chelsea Market and told the hot sauce sommelier–if it’s not a thing, it should be–that the only thing I couldn’t put hot sauce on was ice cream. He said, “We’ve got one for that” and turned me on to Hell Yeah, I’m Hot, a blackberry-hibiscus-habanero blend that has become my everyday yogurt topping. I’m on my third bottle.

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