From Panocha to Fudge

Abstract

Although the origins of the popular candy called fudge have been traced to American industrial processed foods of the 1880s, an early version known as panochita de leche was made in eighteenth-century Mexico using only rustic brown sugar and milk. The authors of this article combined the methodologies of physical chemistry and food history to examine the development of this dish using the science of sugar refining as well as manuscript and published cookbook recipes, memoirs, and travel accounts. Given the lack of Old World confectionery antecedents to the key technique of whisking the cooling sugar to induce crystallization, they attribute panochita to vernacular Mexican traditions of sugar refining and candy making.