If you’re on a quest
to sample as many different regional foods as possible from around the country
(as I am), your choices get pretty slim when you approach towns like Wichita in
the Plains states. It seemed that my only
two choices in Wichita were Pemmican; a “high energy” food bar made from
saturated fat and dried nuts and berries, or “Mashed potato fudge” which
sounded far safer and much more appetizing.
After reading that
they feed Pemmican to sled dogs in Alaska to give them the energy to run for
days on end (it is literally composed of more than 50% rendered saturated fat),
I thought my lifestyle was much more suited to a square (or two) of fudge. It didn’t help to learn that Members of
Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 expedition to the Antarctic only resorted to eating
pemmican when they were stranded on Arctic ice for the winter, and faced
starvation… So; Pemmican was out; Mashed Potato Fudge was IN!
Mashed potato
fudge? Yes, I said, “Mashed potato
fudge!” Fudge is friendly with all sorts
of other foods, from peanut butter to Velveeta cheese; but to pair it with
mashed potatoes reeks of desperation, doesn’t it? I’m picturing a lonely bachelor who is down
to his last few potatoes and a box of semi-sweet chocolate that’s been in his
cupboard since he left home to go to college.
He wants to cook something
that might impress his date so he gets “creative.” After all, nougat looks a bit like mashed
potatoes, doesn’t it?
The taste is good,
but the texture is even better. The
chocolate sort of melts and mixes with the fluffy mashed potato and you end up
with a much lighter variation of your typical fudge, but all the depth that
good chocolate brings to the table with 1/3 of the fat and calories! The recipes that I’ve found online look much
simpler than this fudge tastes. A whole
batch of these morsels only calls for 3 Tbsp of butter and 3oz of semi-sweet
chocolate. The rest is mashed potato,
vanilla, and (oh yea), 3 cups of powdered sugar.
As regional foods go,
I’d have to give this one a 9 out of 10.
Nothing has beaten the Cubano sandwich I picked up in Miami yet…
EXTRA: If
you have questions for Ken regarding business travel, hotels, airplanes, etc,
please send him a “Tweet” on his twitter account. You can also follow Ken
on Twitter @foodbreeze!
