I grew up in New England - contrary to some (cough cough, Emilie), it is not a foreign country :) I had the joy of attending the local public schools. In those days they were small - not quite one room schoolhouses, but small - Memorial School housed 1st and 2nd grade and then I was in the first 3rd grade class at the brand new Peter Woodbury Elementary. It housed 3rd and 4th grades. Middle School was at McKelvie Middle School - all in Bedford, New Hampshire. I think all of the schools are still there, but I am not sure how they are being used. I do remember school lunches... Hot lunches were .40 or $2 a week. I remember milk being .05 and when I was really little, it came in glass bottles with paper stoppers. We drank it through red and white paper straws. We would get two straws because they did become soggy midway through lunch. I even worked in the cafeteria for a while in middle school. I don't remember why I did it, but I remember serving jello and bread and cake - and a wonderful dessert called Andrew's Fudgies. In the 70s, when I was a youngin', I recall Fridays being fish (or meatless) days - since the majority of the population was Catholic, that is not surprising. I also remember the government allotments of soybeans and peanut butter often found their way onto our lunch trays. It wasn't all that bad; in fact, today's school cafeterias might want to take a step back into the 70s for a lesson in healthy meals. Pizza was rare, fries were non-existent, and there were vegetables every day. Granted they were from a can, but still, they were there none-the-less!
But back to dessert - one of the most memorable items on the tray - a favorite was Andrew's Fudgies. I think it is a New England recipe. I looked it up online to see if I could find its origin and found some links to an old radio show host and some other things. All of the posts mentioned it being from New England, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Apparently it is also Portuguese - who knew? I found a "Provincetown [Massachusetts] Portuguese Cookbook" with the following history:
"Andrew's Fudgies
Rachel Silva White
Rachel White's friend Mary Anastasi, who was born in Portugal, obtained this recipe as a gift for her husband Andrew from a baker in Fatima. Hence the name Andrew's Fudgies. In exchange for the recipe, Mary had to give the baker all of her silk stockings as a gift for his wife, including the pair she was wearing. She flew home happy, but bare legged.
The baker told Mary that the original recipe called for one cup of oil and two or three squares of solid chocolate. He was forced to substitute cocoa and increase the oil because solid chocolate was not available in Portugal in the 1960's."
http://www.iamprovincetown.com/Cookbook/sweets/fudgies.html
My recipe card for this is old, stained, and folded in several places, so I figured I would make a more permanent copy here on the blog. Mine seems to be almost exactly the same as Mary's recipe. I hope you enjoy it!
ANDREW'S FUDGIES
2/3 c. plus 1/4 c. cooking oil
3/4 c. cocoa
2 eggs
2 c. plus 3 T sugar
2 1/2 c. flour
1 t. soda
1 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. cold water
1 c. chocolate chips
1 c. nuts (pecans or walnuts)
Preheat oven to 350'. Beat all ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, nuts and 3 T. sugar. Place mixture in UNGREASED 9x13 or 11x17 pan (the bigger the pan, the thinner the fudgies). Sprinkle with chocolate chips, nut and last the sugar. Bake at 350' for 45 minutes.
There is your chocolate fix for now! We are expecting more snow tomorrow afternoon. Yeesh! This Yankee is DONE with winter!! Until next time stay WARM and loved!!
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