What do you cook at a FUDGE PARTY?

I'd say this title is similar to "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" Rather self-explanatory.

Since posting the fudge party postcard the other day, I've been thinking a lot about fudge; more than usual. I have resisted all urges to make any. A friend makes some each Christmas and gives me a can. I make that last for several months. But oh, how nice it would be to have a piece right now; especially my grandmother's fudge. Alas, it's been over 40 years since I tasted grandma's fudge. Funny how some smells and tastes stay with you forever.

I give you some fudge recipes from a 1931 cookbook put out by General Foods. Best Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes from Walter Baker & Company, Inc. located in Dorchester, Massachusetts. This company was founded in 1780. It is now owned by Kraft Foods. You know, mergers, mergers, mergers. You can still buy Baker's chocolate, though being on the West Coast, I tend to now buy Guittard, a local SF Bay Area company.

So knock yourself out. Get the mixing bowls out and get to work. And if you're not in the mood for candy try a fudge cake. Then do let me know if you tried any of these. I will only read them and dream.

Click on any image to see it larger.

Oh my dear sweet pet, you give me Comfort

What I like most about doing this ephemera blog is the "research" I get to do. I use the term loosely because let's admit it, when doing research on the net you just never know how valid the information is. So anytime you see me post anything, take it with a grain of salt. All I've done is search around through Google trying to find out what pops up when I do word searches. I try to find as much information as I can and then I regurgitate it back through here to you. Now, due to my lack of net access I can't do the research. All I can do is post something I find very humorous and hope you enjoy it.

This is from a magazine called "Comfort" which was basically a rag sent out to rural folks full of bad advertisements, get-rich-quick schemes, a few stories, and a few household hints. The magazine also included columns wherein readers would write in to the "Comfort Sister's Corner conducted by Mrs. Wheeler Wilkinson" or to "Comfort's League of Cousins Conducted by Uncle Lisha". The following is to Uncle Lisha in the September 1931 issue. I read this the other night and then thought "Oh, I so have to post this!" If nothing else I know Eloh is going to laugh and that's a good thing.

Enjoy! This is one you'll want to email friends just so they can shake their heads and laugh.

The more things change the more THEY REMAIN THE SAME

Before there was Big Pharma was there a little guy in an apartment somewhere with a sure fire cure for warts-aches-pains-lumbago-diabetes-rheumatism-moles-hair loss-asthma, etcetera, etcetera, ecetera? Looking through these ads from the 1931 issue of Comfort you'd think so. All you had to do was write them and they'd send you information about their miracle cure. Now we have big 4 color ads in magazines and nonstop tv commercials. Will any of today's ads be kept as ephemera? Will any of them be lumped in with old fashioned snake oil sales? I can think of quite a few. 

Here, for your viewing pleasure, a variety of the tiny ads that were grouped throughout the back of this issue of Comfort. How many sick people were taken for a ride by these companies? How many people spent part of their meager income hoping for relief? Today instead of writing for information we're repeatedly told "Ask your doctor!" So start scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and then ASK YOUR DOCTOR!

My favorite line is "If you're feeling sour and sunk and the world looks punk..."

But I guess my favorite is just an old home remedy sent in by a reader, a cure for corns. It doesn't say what you do with the vinegar soaked bread after using. Perhaps bury it under a board then turn around three times and scream like a chicken?