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 My mom was a great cook.  Growing up during the Great Depression and learning from her mother, my Gramma Nano, Mom honed her skills in the kitchen feeding her family for many years.  Give her an onion and a few basic ingredients and you could eat well.  She was known for her banana pudding, a staple at every 4-H potluck when I was a kid.  Her Depression Era tomato soup was also a favorite and hit the spot on cold rainy days.  Mom’s turkey dinners at Thanksgiving were legendary.  I have never tasted cornbread dressing that could compare to Mom’s.  Not only would she stuff the bird, usually the biggest one she could find at our local Safeway, but she would make additional pans of dressing, so we had plenty to go with our turkey sandwiches after the holiday.  But nothing compared to her to her amazing Christmas fudge.  I am convinced that Mom made the best tasting fudge ever consumed on planet Earth.
 She called it old-fashioned fudge.  Rumor had it Mom’s family had somehow acquired the well-known See’s Candy Company fudge recipe.  
 See’s candy is famous.  The See’s family candy shops began popping up all over California beginning in the 1920s and they do make great fudge.  You can still buy it today.  They now have stores nationwide, and you can also buy their fudge online.
 The See’s fudge connection may be true, but I suspect that Mom’s recipe is a slightly modified version of Mamie Eisenhour’s Million Dollar Fudge recipe that circulated through the culinary world in the 1950s.  For those of you who are asking who Mamie Eisenhour was – she was the wife of our 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhour, in office from 1953-1961.  He was also a five-star general and the former Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces in Europe during WWII.  Ike was a pretty good president, and I’m sure he thoroughly enjoyed his wife’s delicious fudge.
 Some quick research revealed that the only difference between Mamie Eisenhour’s fudge recipe and my mom’s was the added vanilla in Mom’s version.  Whatever the case, what follows is Mom’s recipe.  I invite you to make tubs and tubs of this delectable fudge to enjoy with your family as you celebrate Christmas this year.  

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