Fudge Fest Marks Second Year
By Jessica Delaney

Fudge-making on Mackinac has turned into a spectator sport. Tourists and visitors have the opportunity not only to sample the Island’s famous fudge, but to actually see it being made. Here, Martin Jasko of Murdick’s prepares a slab-style piece of the delicious candy.

Mackinac Island is known for many things: fort, ferries, fun, and, of course, fudge, and from August 26 through 28, the Island will host a fudge festival to recognize the importance of the candy.

“The purpose of the festival is to celebrate fudge,” said Mary Slevin, the executive director of the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau. “It’s been here a hundred years, but we’ve never properly celebrated the fudge.”

The event was started last year, but held in October. This year it was moved up a few months in the hope of better weather and better attendance by families. Several new events have been added to keep momentum moving, and some changes have been made to last year’s events.

Stone skippers will be returning to the Island for a stoneskipping-for-fudge competition. The event will be held Saturday, August 27, from 10 a.m. until noon and will feature both amateur and proam divisions. Last year, contestants actually skipped fudge formed into skipping pieces, but this year they will skip stones.

“It was hard to make the fudge and it was almost sacrilegious,” said Mrs. Slevin. “But the seagulls loved it.”

A dance series is also planned. The Maycroft Square Tappers will perform at 4 p.m. Saturday at Mission Point Theater. The group includes people of all ages, dancing a combination of square dancing and tap dancing. They will be followed at 7 p.m. by the Fine Arts Academy of Dance, a hip hop and jazz dancing group. The dance series will round out Sunday at 1 p.m. with the Children’s Ballet Theatre of Michigan performing traditional ballet.

“We need some nice, cultural attractions on the Island,” said Mrs. Slevin. “We haven’t seen any dance in awhile.”

According to Mrs. Slevin, the biggest event in this year’s festival will be called “Daddy. . .I want a golden ticket and I want it now!” From noon until four on Saturday, five local fudge shops will be holding a competition to win a three-night vacation to the Island for four people. Five boxes of the fudge special for the day (two pieces of fudge, chocolate and chocolate no-nut) will be gifted by a magical golden ticket. Posters will be placed outside the doors of the fudge shops which have at least one of the tickets.

The idea is taken from the book by Roald Dahl, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Other new events include a Grand Hotel history lecture with historian Bob Tagatz. The lecture will be held at the Grand Hotel porch and will be included with the $10 admission to Grand Hotel. There will also be a $5 architectural walking tour, which will focus on why and how architecture is relevant to the creation of the Island.

Old favorites will be returning as well, including fudge spa treatments at both 7th Heaven Salon and Spa and Lilac Tree Spa.

7th Heaven will be offering three treatments: a fudge facial, which is similar to a European facial with aromatherapy, a fudge pedicure, and a chocolate body scrub.

“You receive all the benefits of a spa treatment along with the chocolate aromatherapy,” said Mike Iles of 7th Heaven Salon and Spa. “You have to be a fudge lover and love chocolate. It will stimulate the senses that way.”

Mr. Iles said the spa has discovered a line of chocolate products and the fudge spa treatments will be specially priced.

“Everything will have a chocolate aroma, but it’s not actually fudge,” said Mr. Iles. “Anybody who loves that chocolate scent will really love it.”

The feather masked wine and fudge tasting and feather sword fencing competition will be returning this year. The event, held at the Inn at Stonecliffe, will mix wine and fudge for a memorable evening, which will also include a feather fencing competition, complete with rules and a judge.

“People think that it’s crazy, pairing fudge and wine, but in Spain they do it all the time, it’s normal,” said Ms. Slevin. The idea for the feather fencing came from an experience at the Harvard Art Museum, she said, where there is an annual champagne and chocolate masked ball. Everybody had a feather at the ball and were playfully fencing with feathers. Ms. Slevin decided to take the event one step further with a true fencing competition.

This year, more rules have been added, such as a time limit and a rule that the upper body cannot be bent and only one hand may be used - similar to professional fencing.

But, of course, the highlight of the festival is no single event or contest. It is, instead, the candy of Mackinac Island: the fudge.

Fudge first began being manufactured on the Island in the late 1880s and is still going strong over a century later. It weathered through the lean years of the Depression and the sugar quotas of World War II.

“After World War II, when we could get all the sugar we needed, we built up a big following of people, and made fudge synonymous with Mackinac Island,” said Marvin May. May’s Candy Shop has been in the fudge business continually, with the same family, for longer than any other fudge shop. The fifth generation of Mays is now hard at work on the Island.

When Mr. May’s father first came to work on the Island, he brought recipes for more than 20 varieties of fudge.

“I have the original recipe book, which is as thick as a Bible,” said Mr. May. “There are 600 recipes for various kinds of fudge.”

Today, however, the shop, along with most of the other fudge shops on the Island, use only the slab fudge style. This style of fudge, which people can watch being made in the front of many stores, has a factor of showmanship that pans of fudge do not have.

According to Mr. May, there are three main reasons why fudge became such an important industry on the Island.

“It’s quality, it’s associated with Mackinac Island, and we’re making it so people can see it,” said Mr. May. “What made it popular was the fact that our candy shop made fudge in the open where people could come and see it being made. If it were made in the back with a retail front, I don’t think it would be famous today.”

Though fudge is not the reason that most people come to the Island, it is often one of the souvenirs they take home with them. The 2nd Annual Fudge Festival is here to celebrate the history, and the delicious flavor, of this Mackinac tradition.