2001-08-11 - 19:35 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

No Fudgin'

We boys usually shied away from anything related to housework or things similar. We could be pushed and threatened into doing something in the house, complaining with every move.

Ah, but there was one exception. It had to do with our, "Sweet Tooth," an ailment some of us can't to this day manage to achieve a minimal recovery. A special thing, just crawling with chocolate and sugar, the food of the old gods - ambrosia, better known as Fudge

Aside from the usual Boy Scout survival cooking and the once in a while potatoes we roasted at a small fire in a vacant lot, we were rank tyros in the kitchen.

We gathered most every day, to perpetrated our mischiefs. Once in a while though our addiction to candy, our kind of candy, would overpower us and we would draw our battle plans to make a big batch of fudge.

To begin with it would take a conference to see which kitchen we could sneak into to cook up our goodies. Then each of us would volunteer what ever ingredient he could get and the amount he could liberate. Scroungers departed to grab what they could and would go directly to the alley behind the chosen house, lookin' to do the cookin'.

Entrance was usually by the back door. We would walk quietly and as unobtrusively as we could into the scene of our crime to be.

Each of us felt we had the right to be intimately involved in every step of making fudge for ourselves. So, there was debate on the amount of each of the ingredients, on method, on how to determine when it was done. Some times the actual operation would have to be postponed or done in a panicked hurry because the preliminary politicking consumed too much darn time.

Of course, every one had to have a turn at measuring, melting the chocolate, and each of us taking our rightful place at stirring. All along there would be discussion and repercussion. But no fist fights, 'cause no one wanted to miss out on the heavenly sweet stuff. It was one big deal and a heavy operation.

Finally after a quorum decided the fudge was done, it would be poured into a cookie sheet or whatever flat container was available. I remember we once used the bottom of Wagner Ware cast iron skillets. And then the guy with the pocket watch was the prime cookie.

We would agree to go off to the park as a group, usually to the backyard and play, keeping an eagle eye on each other. Knowing ourselves as birthday cake thieves bar none - trustful souls we were not and we stayed in a clump. Every once in a while a kid would ask the kid with the pocket watch if the fudge had sat long enough to cool, quite like we did to our Dad's on a trip, "Are we there yet ?"

Finally the moment arrived and we would troop inside drooling like anxious bull dogs to see the results of our important joint effort and partake of same.

The end result of any batch could be compared to the reality following a Denver weather forecast, we knew what we wanted and expected and occasionally the desired confection turned out quite well. But for the most part, a mixed bag is a civilized description of the outcome. A time or two we sipped our fudge through straws or used teaspoons to consume the result of our efforts. Other times it would take a capenter's hammer to break the stuff into pieces. And then there was the fudge cooked so long that when struck would shatter into a million tiny slivers.

Yet it was a grand, esteem building, cooperative event which aided us to civilly associate with each other. We were a group and not up to mischief. The only complication was a bunch of messy boys trying to clean up after themselves, and not doing a very good job. The kid belonging to that house would be, "In Dutch," and required under the threat of death by his Mom to make her kitchen and utensils bright and shiny again, sometimes the stove would take extra effort for a long time to remove that burnt on black/brown stuff.

But we had fun, lots of it and due to the product we played fair with each other and No Fudgin' . . . . . .

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