Wondering what to do for Valentine’s Day for all those special Valentines in your life? Bootie and Bossy to the rescue with a recipe for FIVE POUNDS of our Aunt Annie’s homemade fudge, also known as “Overseas Fudge” because it will withstand a military transport plane. And that’s our Aunt Annie, rocking the yellow pantsuit in the ‘70s—how could it not be good when it comes from her?! The well-spattered recipe from 1968 is fool-proof and delicious, and even if you eat one pound yourself, you’ll still have four pounds left to send to everyone else.

But there’s more to the story here, as we discovered when we read Lee Edwards Benning’s Oh Fudge! A Celebration of America’s Favorite Candy with Nearly 300 Mouth-Watering, Fully Tested Recipes. While fudge began as an accidental discovery (as its name suggests), it was Emelyn Battersby Hartridge, a freshman at Vassar in 1888, who began the trend of fundraising through fudge-making at women’s colleges. Soon the women at Smith and Wellesley had their own recipes that they whipped up over a gas lamp after lights out at 10:00 PM. They even wrote songs about it:

We love the sight of the fudge-pan bright,

We love the sight of the spoon,

And better by far than the light of the star

Is the gas, now outshining the moon.

Then gather around with whispers profound

For the bell has rung ten at night,

With the transom shut, at our very last cut

We’ll sing to the fudge-pan bright . . .

--Lee Edwards Benning, Oh Fudge! A Celebration of America’s Favorite Candy (New York: Henry Holt), p. 9.

Who says that they did not know how to party back then? And fudge-making is still fun now, just like our Aunt Annie, who is also a master of many crafts, including pet portraits!

So sing the song to the fudge-pan bright and whip up some chocolate magic—the Cocoa bean is, after all, from the genus Theobroma, Greek for “Food for the Gods.” Then send it off to all your Valentines—they will definitely feel the love!