Gertrude’s Fudge

May 6, 2020

When my Nana was growing up in the 1920-30s, she lived in the house next door to her Nana: three generations sharing a yard in a small New England apple orchard town.

Last summer, my mom told me stories I hadn’t heard before about my great-great-grandmother, my Nana’s Nana: how she was a real firecracker, mischievous and funny; how she would hide and throw snowballs at her grandchildren and they would think it was the neighbors and chaos would ensue until she popped out of hiding. I can picture my own grandmother as a child laughing. My Nana was a wonderfully playful grandmother and it made sense to hear that my Nana’s grandmother was a joyous rascal.

Then my mom said, "Maybe she was so full of life because she lost all four of her sisters to a flu one winter."

“1918?” I asked knowingly.

“No, earlier than that, just another flu that came through,” she answered.

At the time, that seemed like a story from long ago, impossible now with flu vaccines and antibiotics and all the other medical interventions I can’t name but trust will be there when we need them. Now, I lay awake at night thinking about the unfathomable number of people in NYC/NJ who are dying each day from this pandemic, and I worry about the availability of ventilators. During those long nights, I also think about my mom, 300 miles away, and wish that we shared a yard with her so she and her grandchild could play together everyday.

This is a simple recipe to satisfy late-night sweet cravings. It’s a hard fudge, different from the soft fudge they sell at pick-your-own apple orchards, and for some reason I think of it as entirely different from seaside fudge. It reminds me of Friday nights in the 1990s, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my family, my mom declaring that she “Needs Fudge!” and, 20 minutes later, we are all eating chocolate off the mixing spoon while the fudge cools. This fudge was the first thing my mom taught me how to cook. Her copy of the recipe is written in her grandmother’s handwriting, and my copy is written in my mom’s handwriting. The original recipe came from Gertrude Fairbanks, my great-grandmother’s cousin, who never married. Since learning about fudge’s association with “mild rebellion” at women’s colleges, I like to imagine Gertrude making fudge with her friends, maybe even a girlfriend, a queer feminist ancestor helping me through.

2 cups sugar
⅔ cup milk
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch salt

Bring to a boil, then add butter the size of a walnut. Cook until it sugars when stirred in a dish [I love this phrasing, and there's no need for a candy thermometer, but if you have one, I have since discovered it’s helpful to know that this is the “soft ball stage” at 240F]. Add vanilla. Beat until thickens, pour into greased pan. Let cool.

Sady Sullivan lives in New Jersey where she is exploring how to connect Deep Listening and movement practices with her oral history / public history / social justice work.