July 7, 2017 • 41 mins
Marshmallows in one form or another (hearts, stars, and horseshoes included) have been enjoyed for thousands of years and involve some serious science. This is no fluff piece, is what we're saying.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm an erie and
I'm going vocal bam, and today we're going to be
talking about marshmallows. Yes, we we've got kind of a
one to punch for you for opening up your summer.
Are we doing marshmallows and then Graham crackers. Yes, and
we will get to chocolate. Oh, don't worry. Oh yeah, eventually.
This is what we're We're lucky here in Atlanta to
(00:30):
have a number of people who do um a full
like bean to bar chocolate, and so we really want
to go talk to some of them before we start
off on a chocolate we search endeavor like it'll be
a chocolate rabbit hole. Oh yeah, oh man, that's a
delicious rabbit hole. But we did go on a delicious
marshmallow rabbit hole. We visited mal v marshmallows in Incoming, Georgia. Yeah,
(00:55):
they do ship everywhere, though they are not like everywhere everywhere.
I think it's like United States, United States everywhere? Sorry everybody. Yes, um, yeah,
we ate so many marshmallows. Oh they were so delicious.
They were Oh, handmade marshmallows are nothing like manufactured marshmallows basically, Yes,
(01:16):
this is one I would say. It's completely different, almost
completely different from what you bind the store. What do
you make at home. It's the same concept though, yes,
because marshmallows, as you know. Oh no, are there people
out there who don't know marshmallows. Yeah, we must explain. Yes,
they are like a puffy, white, air smushy sweet treat
(01:40):
that are typically encountered in the West around Easter time
or in the summer as the goo that finds together
some moores hins marshmallows with Graham crackers for the summertime,
or at least that's what I thought, because apparently a
majority of the ninety million pounds and a million pi
of marshmallows Americans by annually, and we are the number
(02:04):
one consumer, are purchased between the months of October and December,
which I I guess like hot chocolate toppings, sweet potato castuals.
I don't put marshalls on there, but I hear people
do in Ambrosia. That's that's how I had a growing up. Yeah,
Ambrosia salad um, Christmas cookies maybe as an ingredient, right,
(02:26):
and um, when I brought this up, it's kind of
a weird fact at Malby Marshmallows Um, the owner of Laura.
She said, they're just good Christmas gifts, So I guess
that makes sense. I guess Nancy marshmallows anywhere and good
Christmas GIFs. You better not killy like a bag of
hor I'll be pretty mad for a little bit, then
(02:46):
I'll be fine. I'm pretty sure you would just eat them. Yeah,
aren't you, Chris, which is how I prefer them. Oh yeah, yeah,
I totally yeah, I like mine. I don't know, I
like them both ways. I like nice, gentle toast, even toast,
and then I like burning the crap out of some
of them. So like marshmallow SMOs. These things are very important.
(03:10):
It's a different animal once it's burnt. It's true. Another
random facts leone. That's how I would say it in French.
I'm probably I'm gonna go ahead and say that it's
Linda Near. It's probably Linda Near. You're absolutely correct. It's
it's a noble county, Indiana, though it's it's the name
of This is the name of a town. Yes, and
it is the marshmallow capital of the world. Um. That
(03:34):
is because both Kraft and kid have marshmallow plants there
to arrival marshmallow plants in the same town. Interesting, they
have an annual marshmallow festival. When is it? I don't know.
I need to find that out. Marshmallows, meanwhile, are actually
about eight air sounds like something my dad would say
(03:59):
about my brain anyway. These days, most commercial marshmalls are
generally made up of some combination of sugar, egg whites, gelatine,
corn syrup flavorings like vanilla, and water with a cornstarch
or confectioner sugar coating. UM. But the first marshmallows were
(04:22):
derived from a muca see sap of the mallow plant
scientific name Alphea officia analysis which likes to grow in marshes.
Get it, marsh mallow. It makes complete sense. Marshmallow. Yes. Yes.
The plant grows to be like like two two to
four ft tall, that's like points six to about two
(04:44):
meters UM and it's native to West Asia and Europe
as big old pink flowers um. And most of the
sap is located in the roots, and in ancient times
and even into more modern times, it was thought to
have been a curative for so with throats and of
other issues. UM. It's scientific name Alphea comes from the
(05:06):
Greek root for for curing or healing, which brings us
to our history segment, because the first marshmallows go back
further than perhaps I thought, right all the way back
to two thousand b C, when ancient Egyptians would boil
sap extracted from the mallow plant in honey, sometimes mixing
(05:26):
in nuts to make individual spongey candy like things. And
this was a pineapple level treat, which is my new
bar for measuring luxury, by the way, and it was
reserved for royalty and gods, which I think royalty were
considered god, so technically it's sort of the same, right,
but that it had something to do with like ceremonies,
(05:47):
Oh what very interesting um. And from there the marshmallows
and medicinal reputation must have spread. Beginning sometime around about
ninth century BC, marshmallows were used not just for sore throats,
but to heal wounds, and marshmallow sap was made into
a bomb used in treating beastings and tooth thigs. Compresses
(06:09):
made up of ground marshmallow leaves were recommended by Arab
physicians as an anti inflammatory, and by the first century
CE Greek physician bios Karates wrote that the marshmallow worked
against wounds if you had any swelling in the glands
and flamed breast, swellings of the anus, dysentery, blood loss,
(06:30):
or diarrhea. Mm hmm um our our buddy. Pliny supposedly wrote,
whosoever shall take a spoonful of the mallows, shall that
day be free from all diseases that may come to him.
Wow the mallow, Oh, that's great. Um of fifteenth century
(06:51):
Italian cooking text written by Latina called On Right Pleasure
and Good Health, had an entire chapter dedicated to the
healing properties of the marshmallow plant. The marshmallow continued to
be prescribed as an anti inflammatory and throw it super
into the Renaissance. Also up through the eighteen hundreds at
least to the plant was sometimes eaten as a savory
(07:12):
dish um, not necessarily for its medicinal properties um, and
the leaves is a salad. The stems and roots would
be boiled and or pan fried. One recipe from eighteen
seventy five recommends frying the roots with onions and butter.
I mean frying anything with onions and butter. Sounds pretty good,
so just about yeah, although it would probably be kind
of mucasin is sort of like a like okra, maybe
(07:35):
a problem for me. And this just about brings us
to nineteenth century France and the modern day marshmallow, which
isn't necessarily curative. No, probably not. But first let's take
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(08:01):
we're back. Thank you. Sponsor. Into France a frequent center
for food trends, French candy makers were looking to create
a healthier indulgence and they came up with patte de
grimav are, pretty much the modern day marshmallow. They didn't
have modern day technology, though, so to arrive at their
(08:24):
version of the marshmallow, French candy makers whipped together marshmallow,
plant juice, eggs, and sugar until it was this foamy
paste that was heated, poured and shaped into molds one
at a time by hand. You could get them as
a lozenge or a bar and they were advertised as
(08:45):
this treat. Yeah. This quote from excuses great name Complete
Confectioner is a good example of that. Marshmallows are greamov
experienced a lot of popularity. Must be nice. Once David
came more wide spread outside of the royalty and God's
crowd fancy that, so demand was pretty high. But this
(09:07):
process of marshmallow making obviously took a lot of time
and you know, like money, so candy makers were looking
for a cheaper, faster way to make them. The solution
to their problem came in the form of the eighteen
to nineteenth century commercialization of of food grade dried gelatine,
which was first patented in powder form in America by
(09:28):
Peter Cooper in eighteen forty five. He's also the inventor
of the steam locomotive and was actually trying to figure
out like glue at the time. He wasn't looking for
a dessert, but that's sort of how it worked out. Yeah,
this commercial gelatine was was cheap and easily sourced, so
katie maker started using it to replace the marshmallow plant
(09:49):
extract while still being able to to keep the candy
you know, fluffy, pillowy. Right, But that also meant that
the reported health and it fits that the marshmallow route
brought to the marshmallow we're lost. Yes, And it was
still a slow process. You had to let the mallows
(10:10):
air dry and sheets or individually so that they'd form
a skin and then sprinkle them with starch, and the
processed a few hours per batch. However, by the late
eighteen hundred slash early nineteen hundreds, UM, the now mass
produced marshmallows spread to the United States and were available
in these little one cent tins. Everything in tins, everything
(10:32):
was great, UM thanks to the advent of the very
menacing sounding starch mogul system. It's just the process of
using these corn starch molds to to form the marshmallows.
Corn starch being a powder that is really good at
absorbing water. And yes, I just said adsorb, not absorb. Um.
(10:54):
Absorb means to suck something in. Adsorb means to kind
of stick something on. Um. On a molecular level, corn
starch and other absorptive materials like sand are are all
craggy and porous, and water molecules just kind of get
stuck there. So the powdery coating on modern marshmallows is
typically a combination of cornstarch and confection or sugar, which
(11:17):
forms a sort of protective barrier and keeps them moist
on the inside but dry enough on the outside that
you can pick them up without getting your fingers all sticky.
So a pressed corn starch mold was a really great
invention because it saved you a whole lot of mess um,
and the mallows would just pick up a coating of
the stuff as they were being pressed into shape. Nice.
But there were more improvements to be made, and it
(11:40):
was made by Alex Dumak in the US, in which
brings us to modern marsh mellow manufacturing. Yes, uh okay,
So the mass production of food frequently means treating food
items as though they are industrial materials, which I guess
at that point they are, right um. And Alex Dumac
(12:03):
the son of a marshmallow maker who had been mass
producing marshmallows in cast molds, you know, like the usual
way since the nineteen twenties. Alex figured out that you
could extrude marshmallows in food processing. Extrusion is when you
shove a batter through holes sounds, so I know, you
just you just shove it. Um. So sometimes with air
(12:25):
pressure or something like that. It's how stuff like like
cereals and pasta are generally made, and it works really
well with marshmallows. They can either be cut individually as
they come out of the extruder or formed into long
ropes and then cut in mass. And this machinery made
it possible to create a marshmallow in an hour flat.
A single marshmallow, well, I mean that probably more than
(12:46):
just the one, but you know, but from start to
finish that I mean, yeah, I have batch the batch
of marshmallows. I understand, just just checking away that it's
a good, good, good call. Um. The Dumac company, by
the way, makes um Campfire and Rocky Mountain brand marshmallows.
If you've ever seen a campfire marshmallow, that's them. And
he would soon license the patent out to Craft because
(13:08):
his company couldn't keep up with demand. They were so
much cheaper than traditionally produced marshmallows that he was just
like a guy can't handle it anymore. Craft, please take
this patent. Um. So they started using an extrusion process
for their marshmallows in the late nineteen fifties and marketed
them as jet puffed to kind of ride the Space
(13:30):
Races coat tails into commercial success. Uh. And it worked
really well. Um in that even ran a promotion where
kids could send in empty marshmallow bags in order to
enter to win a spaceship and non operative spaceship um
complete with astronauts suits and count down lights in this
projector that would show them star maps, which is just
(13:52):
he can cute. That is a price I would have
really wanted right now as a kid, I would totally
set that up in my backyard. But let's talk a
little bit here about the science of marshmallows, because there's
marshmallow science, of course there is, Okay, So so your
(14:13):
goal in making a marshmallow is to um, it's to
suspend air bubbles inside of a soft solid, giving the
marshmallows that spongey, smooshy texture texture that they have. And
you do that by heating up sugar and some kind
of jelling agent until they're they're both liquid and pliable,
and and then whipping them so that air bubbles get trapped,
and then letting them cool so so it all sets
(14:34):
back into a solid. Marshmallows are technically a stabilized foam,
and gelatine is a really good basis for this. Uh
it's it's a really good jelling agent. Um. Gelatine being
animal collagen, which is a structural protein that that makes
your body have shape rather than just being a puddle.
Without collagen, we would all just be puddles. Um collagen
(14:55):
can be stretchy and pliable, like it is in your
skin and tendons and muscles and blood vessels, and it
can it can also get mineralized and then be stiff,
like like in your bones. Food grade collagen is derived
from the skin and bones of cows and pigs, most
commonly these days, but can also be taken from fish
skin in bones if you want to make kosher gelatine
(15:16):
or otherwise, you know, gelatine that is friendly to people
who do not want to eat those mammals. And there
are a lot of plant derived jelling agents that can
be used in addition to or instead of gelatine in
order to give marshmallows different textures and or to h
to make them vegan like a soy protein gum, arabic
ag are other stuff derived from seaweed. Seeweed is a
(15:39):
great squidgy substance, It's true. Laura at Mauve Marshmallows was
experimenting with this. Visit her, Yeah, yeah, she She said
that she was working on kind of retexturizing in a
bunch of different ways and trying to and trying to
find like vegetarian and vegan alternatives too. M that other
thing um. Gelatine, by the way, solidifies at around owned
(16:00):
nine degrees fahrenheit a k a. Thirty five degrees celsius
and and melts at anything above that, which is why
things like marshmallows melt in your mouth. Ah h tasty
fun science. Indeed, well, now that we have covered marshmallows science,
it's time to take a look at marshmallow culture. But
(16:22):
first it's time to take a look at this ad
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and
I hope that all of you listeners enjoyed looking at
that ad. Um. I love looking at my audio as
(16:44):
it's my favorite so uh so marshmallows are are just
intensely fun and hilarious and they have a long history
of being so yes, I wish I had recorded the
look on my face as I did this research, because
it was just delightful. Um. The most obvious cultural thing
is probably this moore. The origin of this moore is
(17:07):
a bit of a mystery. As far back as the
Victorian era, we can find recipes for cookie sandwiches and
by the twentieth century, these sandwiches, some made with marshmallows,
were fairly common. The first published recipe for some More
popped up in courtesy of a Girl Scouts recipe titled
(17:30):
some More Ah Yeah, which called for smushing too coal
roasted marshmallows in a quote, Graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich.
That sounds like a lot. Yeah, I mean I've I've
done it. That's not out of the real possibility in
my book, I see, Okay, yes, continue. Some More was
(17:52):
shortened too s'more. And these days fifty of marshmallows purchased
in the summer go up and flame is over a
camp fire. There Graham cracker and chocolate cough goodness. Some
companies started selling countertop marshmallow rosters. Are baby quers, guaranteed
(18:13):
safe for children of any size. We used one of these,
I don't know that I would agree with that. I
don't think it was safe for us, let alone for children.
The largest more ever, by the way, waited sixteen hundred
pounds in the nineteen twenties. As well, in addition to
giving us some moores, the ninet twenties gave us jello
(18:33):
salads spiked with many marshmallows. That's just like the most artificial.
I don't know, it's just these two gelatin products. I don't.
I never want that collars. Yeah, I've never had it.
I never want those textures together. No, I mean I
would try it, but I've I've had it. My um.
(18:54):
One of my grandmother's is uh, very fond of the jellows.
A side salad. Oh, and that cracks me up. That
a side salad. That's great yellow salad. But what were
we trying to convince ourselves? Um, speaking of like childhood memories.
Oh my god, I totally forgot about rice crispies until
(19:15):
I was doing this research. Rice crispy treats. Yes, they're
very important. Yes, Rice Krispy treats were around before rice crispies.
The cereal was around, um yeah, and before mass produced
marshmallows were around. Originally, they use corn syrup and molasses
as the finder, and a woman who worked at Kellogg,
(19:37):
Mildred Day, is credited with cooking up this recipe for
Rice Kristi treats we know today to sell as a
fundraiser for the Campfire Girls group, and according to the U. S.
Patent Office, the name. Rice Crispy Treats first showed up
in just fairly recent um the first time you could
buy those prepackaged UM and fun fact about these, they
(20:03):
were viewed as a healthy, easy snack back in the
box advertising example from quote You're crisp completely different. The
grand party treat perfect as a light dessert between meal,
snack or lunchbox surprise for youngsters a few minutes, a
few pennies turned the treath. I I still I still
(20:26):
eat these, like basically whenever I have a chance to really.
Oh yeah, I don't think I've had once. It's like
second grade. They make me so happy or something about them.
I don't know. They're very they're gooey, they're crisp, completely different.
You could work for Rice Crispy Trees. Also, let us
(20:47):
not forget peeps, Yes, peeps. In nineteen fifty three, Sam
Born of the just Born Candy Company purchased the Rata
Candy Company and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which at the time for
use these marshmallow chicks, specifically for Easter by hand that
took twenty seven hours to make. Goodness. Just Born actually
(21:09):
wanted the jelly bean technology originally which jelly bean technology.
That's two great words when you put together. I love it.
And when they yes eventually and when they saw the
peeps that they were enchanted by them, and uh, originally
just born like the parent company. The original company released
(21:32):
peeps a sort of a specialty item around Easter, but
demand was so high they wanted a way to speed
up the process so they could produce And by four
they had automated the process with a machine called the depositor,
and they trademarked peeps. They made pumpkins for Halloween, Christmas,
trees for Christmas, and today five point five million peeps
(21:54):
are made a day at this one factory in Pennsylvania.
What yes, And they use the depositor all the way
until and Bethlehem drops a giant peep on New Year's
Eve instead of oh my goodness, yep. And in a
(22:17):
group of scientists calling themselves Heap Investigators set out to
test the indestructibility of peeps with the range of deadly
tools like cigarettes and liquid nitrogen, and found that peeps
are for the most part indestructible. Pretty impressive peeps. They're
very divisive. I find I really I really dislike them.
(22:40):
They're not food or I don't know. There's something about them.
It's very upsetting. I think it's the granular sugar cutting. Yeah,
maybe I don't. I have had enough peeps in so long.
I can't say Holly Fry loves them. She loves them.
If you guys ever want to get on Holly's good side,
senders and peeps. Yes. Meanwhile, in three kid In Company,
(23:05):
one of those two corporations that has a marshmallow plant
in Lincolneer, they created a six d and seventy one
pound marshmallow for that annual festival. Wow, I see marshmallows
are so light to me, so I imagine I'm trying
to imagine how big it would have had to Yeah,
(23:26):
they apparently diverted their entire line for in order to
make this giant molded anyway, I can only hope it
was eaten. I'm I'm sure, I'm sure it was carved up. So.
Another one I've never had one of these is moon pies.
I still can't believe that you've missed, man, I missed
a whole range of like cheap desserts. I mean, they're
(23:47):
not like good, but there I don't know, it's no,
they're they're real, They're real, worth while. Like I don't know,
they taste like plastic and nostalgia. Maybe maybe we'll try one.
According to Moonpies website, the idea for this product of
marshmallow sandwich between two Graham Kaka cookies and then dipped
in chocolate originated with Earl Mitchell, a traveling salesman who
(24:09):
asked a Kentucky coal miner what kind of snack would
you like to eat and got the description of what
is now known as the moonpie. In response, or as
the coal miner allegedly called it a snack as big
as the moon, hence the name. There you go. It
was cheap and it fit in the lunch pale, and
(24:29):
by n the Chattanooga bakery that served as the primary
producer of Moonpies was boxing hundreds a day. Apparently they
were improved when enjoyed with an R C Cola, to
the point that in the fifties you could hear Big
Bill listeners give me an RC cola and a moonpie
on the radio like top of the charts coal And
(24:53):
since two thousand eight, Mobile Alabama raises a moonpie on
New Year's Eve. I had no idea that so many
marshmallow based products were being used in New Year's It's excellent.
Michigan Stadium once had to outlaw marshmallows at football games
because students kept stuffing them with pennies and pelting the
(25:14):
opposing team and marching band with them. That's terrible because
you think it's not gonna hurt and know they're stuffed
with I'm sure it wasn't. I think it was just
enough penny to to give it weight, so I don't
think it was meant to hurt anybody. It's just a menace,
a marshmallow menace. They can be menacing. Um and another
(25:41):
favorite of mine, another thing, I've never tried marshmallow fluff.
You've never tried marshmallow fluff. I missed the whole thing.
I missed the whole You've never had a fluffer nutter sandwich. Okay, okay, okay,
cultural note, Yes we're talking, yes, okay, marshmallow fluff. This
stuff goes all the way back to the eight nineties
and for Archibald Query I know, whipped together some sugar
(26:04):
dried egg whites, corn syrup, and vanilla to make the
version we know today. It was marketed as a wrinkle treatment.
According to an ad I found it could even fill
out a shriveled old throat or bust all of my
favorite facts ever. Okay, well sure you know marshmallows are healing. Marshmallow, fluffy,
(26:29):
good marshmallow, the sap. Yeah, well this, yeah, I can
just imagine putting marshalls my face. It's stuck there, that miserable. Yeah, yes,
but I was so happy to find that. Anyway. Query
went door to door to sell his product, but the
(26:51):
sugar shortage caused by World War One had him looking
to sell his marshmallow cream business, and sel he did
for five dollars to two veterans, Alan Dirky and Fred Moer.
In nineteen twenty, Dirky and Moher started making what they
called to sweet marshmallow fluff, and by ninety nine they
had opened a large factory to keep up with demand,
(27:12):
and they sponsored a radio show of live music and
comedy called The Flufferettes. It aired before The Jack Benny
Show on twenty one New England stations, and it was
around until the nineteen forties. And before we move on
from them entirely, I read that their factory is an
example of a very like it was very ahead of
(27:36):
its time. It's impressive cool. Yeah, and that brings us
to another sandwiches and this was one of the favorite
facts of Laura at mal Vi. Uh. Yeah, they're um.
They're also associated with New England in particular, although I
picked them up in South Florida. In Emma Curtis and
(27:58):
her brother Armory, who were descendants of Paul Revere by
the way, started making and marketing snowflake marshmallow cream cram.
There's an accent mark over the E. I'm not sure
what to do with it anyway. Mma was really good
at getting the word out on radio shows and in brochures,
and during World War One she published a recipe for
(28:18):
the fluffer Nutter sandwich, or a sandwich of peanut butter
and marshmallow cream. Only she called it the Liberty Sandwich.
It wasn't. It wasn't called the fluffer Nutter until nineteen
sixty when an ad agency came up with the name
to to advertise the sandwich. Until then it was the
Liberty sandwich. Luffer Nutters were Liberty sandwiches. Oh, I love
(28:42):
it um. And to this day New Englanders are responsible
for half of global sales of marshmallow fluff. You can't
even get it everywhere in the US half of the world. Bunch. Yeah,
I wonder if you can get it on menus. Some
(29:02):
research to be done. I think they have it at
the Kroger. We can I mean we can go, we
can go find some good Yeah, but I want to
know if I can order it on a menu in
a restaurant. Oh, a fluffer and under sandwich. I feel
like they have one at Manny Is that at Manuel's
down Street? I could be I could be wrong. Check
that out. Yeah. Fluff's birthplace of Somerville, Massachusetts has an
(29:27):
annual what the Fluff Festival of September Love it Field
trip um Another bit of random history. In nine nine,
the manager of the Yankees was fired after getting into
a bar brawl with a marshmallow salesman. I wonder what
it was about. I'm not I'm not sure. I think
I don't know. He was apparently a Brawley kind of dude,
(29:48):
but in the Yankees manager or not that marshmallow salesman
that we know of, Although yeah, I think the supposedly
the the manager dude was kind of taunting him, like, like,
what's a big dude, like you'd do. And selling marshmallows
is the thing that he said mean uncalled for also
coming soon all marshmallow luck each arms, which despite being
(30:12):
the best part of lucky charms, are the worst types
of marshmallows in my opinion. Uh, they're called in the
food industry marbits, and they're basically just dried marshmallows because
the amount of moisture and regular marshmallows would totally ruin
a box of Cereal Miguel Moldy bad times. Um. Yeah,
there's there's a whole extensive drying process that they go through.
(30:38):
Oh boy. And they were also used as sort of
kind of fortune tellers. Yeah, you guys have heard of
the the Stanford marshmallow experiments. Probably maybe. Walter Michelle, a
Stanford psychologist, conducted a series of experiments towards the end
of the nineteen sixties where he'd set a single marshmallow
(31:00):
in front of a child participant and tell them they
could have one marshmallow immediately or two if they waited
a couple of minutes. Years later, he thought to reconnect
to these subjects in a termative. There's connection between the
kids who could exercise delaid gratification and academic performance and
social relationships. And yes, the study indicated that kids who
(31:23):
could wait it out did better in these two areas.
And yes, it has been replicated. There's been so much
written about these these marshmallow experiments, like a like a lot.
There's some really, I'll try to post some links on
social media. It's it's super fascinating stuff. Also, let us
never forget the stay puffed marshmallow man. Who could forget
(31:46):
the stay puffed marshmallow man? Stuff with nightmares? Uh? And
you can make your own marshmallows friends. Yes, as we
said at the top of the podcast, they're very much
different than what you'll buy in the store generally like
a grocery store, and there very much better. Yeah there, Okay,
(32:08):
they're both entirely worthwhile and a huge effing pain in
the neck. Uh. In order to do this, you're you're
going to need a stand mixer and a candy thermometer
or another probe type thermometer. And there are no arguments
to be made here. No, don't, don't, don't even start
with me. We're going to be dealing with edible napalm. Serious.
(32:30):
She's pointing the finger at me. She knows I've tried
this and failed. Uh So. Basically, you start by um
by a turning a packet of dried gelatine into a
squidgy gelatine by adding water. This is called blooming the
gelatine um and be by making a simple syrup equal
parts water and sugar, heated until they're both liquid um.
(32:51):
It's nice to sub end some corn syrup to help
keep the mixture stable a k A. Not to let
it crystallize, so you continue heating it, watching the temper.
You're carefully with your thermometer and swirling the pan instead
of stirring it. Starring can agitate any tiny rogue sugar
crystals in the syrup and set off a chain reaction
of crystallization. I don't want it. Uh So you you
(33:13):
heat this mixture until you reach the soft ball stage
of liquid sugar, which is degrees fahrenheit a k A
hundred and twenty degrees celsius, and in in candy making,
that's the name that the softball stage is the name
for when the density of a sugar syrup is such
that it will hold soft shape like a like taffy.
And you should be so careful please around this mixture
(33:38):
because it will stick to your skin if it splashes
on you and burn you very very badly. Um candy
is terrifying. Assuming that you're not in e er, you
add your bloomed gelatin and your soft ball stage syrup
into a stand mixer and then just kind of whip
the crap out of it for like fifteen minutes. Uh.
Then when it's basically done, you can add a little
(33:58):
bit of flavoring like vanilla extract, although you do have
to be very careful because anything to acidic or alcohol
e could could melt the sugar and gelatin structures and
and just leave you with it goose soup. I don't
want it. No. Then to finish it off, you you
kind of quickly scraped the mallow batter into a greased
pan and let it sit either uncovered or loosely covered
(34:22):
until it's firm a couple hours or up to overnight,
and then just cut him into chunks, cut him with
equal parts corn starch and sugar, and impress all of
your friends with delicious, light, fluffy home made marshmallows. And
I have been impressed by a friend with home made marshmallows.
So you you had to tell the tell the story.
It's a good story. I was about to leave for
(34:46):
eight months um to be in Australia, and I was
at the airport and a friend of mine showed up.
I didn't know she was going to show up to
say goodbye to me, and she has with her this container,
and she didn't it was in it. She opened it
with like all this drama, and it was. I couldn't
tell what it was at first because she hadn't cut
(35:07):
them up, but it was a layer of homemade marshmallows.
And I was both very delighted and happy she gave
them to me, and very confused as to why she
gave them to me right before I got onto a plane.
I hadn't even gone through security. I don't know, are
they gonna let me take this massive marshmallow with me?
(35:27):
Is this a gel? I'm not sure it's more than
three ounces. Yes, But they were delicious. They were vanilla flavored,
very good. I was impressed. Um. And and by the way,
of all the pain that marshmallows kind of are to
make cleanup is a breeze because they're made of water
soluble things. Sugar dissolves. It's so nice gelatin too. Yeah,
(35:52):
so that's a plus. All that hard work, but at
least the cleanup will be easy. Yeah, And that is
pretty much all we have on Marshmallows for Each day
brings us to listen to mail. You guys have been
sending it so much listener mail, I feel like we
could just read listener mail. Oh yeah, I think some.
(36:15):
I think a couple of the shows around here have
whole days where they just do a listener mail episode. Well,
we're nearing that point because everyone I read it. It's
it's it's great. Um. Tom B sent as a message
with the subject line pineapple. That's one of the best
subject lines that anyone could send I know. Ever excellently
(36:38):
crafted the history of humanity there, he wrote A long
time ago in college, I dated a woman who lived
in a house on campus with other students. One of
the other women living there was dating a baseball player,
and the team sold pineapples one year as a fundraiser.
The fruits were delivered in December, and of course the
woman living with my friend got one and she left
(37:01):
it in the house of her break and through January
because she was off. Then one night my girlfriend and
I were in the living room studying really when we
heard a loud noise in the kitchen. We went to
check on it and found the pineapple had exploded, flinging
pieces of fruit and juice all over the kitchen. There
was also the very strong odor of alcohol. The thing
(37:22):
had sat there and fermented until the pressure got to
be too great and it let go. The pieces of
fruit that had landed in more sanitary locations were very popular,
as the other women living there got home that night.
But it was a real mast to clean up. I
love that. I've never heard of that. Yeah, but that's amazing,
(37:43):
and I'm sure that the mess was incredible. Yeah. Pineapple
grenade ah oh. I also also pineapple liquor, I know,
like pineapple wine. All right. Jessica also wrote in with
this botox note. She says, I just finished Honey Part
(38:04):
two and I wanted to point out one thing about botox.
I know it's not food related, but it's really interesting.
I agree. Botox was initially developed by pediatric optimologists to
treat double vision or strub busmus. It wasn't until after
this treatment was being used for decades, I think that
it became used for cosmetic purposes. And hijacked by dermatology
(38:25):
and plastic surgery. As an optimologist, it's a bit of
a peeve that most people think botox was invented by
plastic surgeons for wrinkles, when in fact, it was created
by eye doctors to help kids with crossed eyes. Anyways,
back to bettering myself by putting all the new ways
to use honey in every moment of my life into action.
H Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's it's a very
(38:45):
it's a super useful substance. And uh, I hope that
I didn't gloss over that part too much in in
that Honey episode because it's it really is just an
absolute miracle worker for some things. Yeah, I think Honey was.
It was very difficult for us not to go on
tantons about oh talk, spotulism, bees. There's just so much
interesting stuff surrounding Honey, and we were like, there's enough
(39:08):
with Honey. We can can't afford to go in all
these directions. It will be a seventeen hour podcast, yeah us.
Uh And speaking of Honey, Amanda sent us an email
about her experience with meta honey and how it worked
closing and infected wound when nothing else was doing the
trick and apparently it's thick and it looks like honey,
(39:28):
and it smells like honey. She said to you even tried,
it wasn't quite as sweet. Um. And so that's pretty
cool to hear from someone who's used this modern take
on Honey's medicinal uses. Yeah. Absolutely. We We also did
put some of those tangents about bees and stuff into
a video that is currently available on Amazon. It is.
It's on Amazon Prime in the US. You don't have
(39:51):
to have Prime. You can watch it for free, but
you will get an AD and it's also available on
our website. Oh yeah, speaking of video, we we did
shoot a video up at Malvie Marshmallows when we were
there and we're working on getting that together. So perhaps
by the time this episode is out, it will it
(40:11):
will be out as well. We tried to time these things.
We try. Yeah, I always succeed. Um. And and thanks
so much to uh, to Malvie Marshmallows and Laura there
for working with us and giving us a little bit
of marshmallow knowledge. Yeah, he was awesome. Yeah. Thanks also
to Tristan McNeil, our audio engineer, and to you guys
(40:33):
for listening. If if you guys would like to send
us emails about fruit bombs or anything else. We have
an email address, yes it is food Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. If you're not into that whole
email thing, um, then we've got a Twitter and Facebook.
Both of those are our handles are food Stuff HSW
(40:54):
We're on Instagram as food stuff Simple. We hope that
we'll hear from you, and we hope that in the meanwhile,
lots of good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm an erie and
I'm going vocal bam, and today we're going to be
talking about marshmallows. Yes, we we've got kind of a
one to punch for you for opening up your summer.
Are we doing marshmallows and then Graham crackers. Yes, and
we will get to chocolate. Oh, don't worry. Oh yeah, eventually.
This is what we're We're lucky here in Atlanta to
(00:30):
have a number of people who do um a full
like bean to bar chocolate, and so we really want
to go talk to some of them before we start
off on a chocolate we search endeavor like it'll be
a chocolate rabbit hole. Oh yeah, oh man, that's a
delicious rabbit hole. But we did go on a delicious
marshmallow rabbit hole. We visited mal v marshmallows in Incoming, Georgia. Yeah,
(00:55):
they do ship everywhere, though they are not like everywhere everywhere.
I think it's like United States, United States everywhere? Sorry everybody. Yes, um, yeah,
we ate so many marshmallows. Oh they were so delicious.
They were Oh, handmade marshmallows are nothing like manufactured marshmallows basically, Yes,
(01:16):
this is one I would say. It's completely different, almost
completely different from what you bind the store. What do
you make at home. It's the same concept though, yes,
because marshmallows, as you know. Oh no, are there people
out there who don't know marshmallows. Yeah, we must explain. Yes,
they are like a puffy, white, air smushy sweet treat
(01:40):
that are typically encountered in the West around Easter time
or in the summer as the goo that finds together
some moores hins marshmallows with Graham crackers for the summertime,
or at least that's what I thought, because apparently a
majority of the ninety million pounds and a million pi
of marshmallows Americans by annually, and we are the number
(02:04):
one consumer, are purchased between the months of October and December,
which I I guess like hot chocolate toppings, sweet potato castuals.
I don't put marshalls on there, but I hear people
do in Ambrosia. That's that's how I had a growing up. Yeah,
Ambrosia salad um, Christmas cookies maybe as an ingredient, right,
(02:26):
and um, when I brought this up, it's kind of
a weird fact at Malby Marshmallows Um, the owner of Laura.
She said, they're just good Christmas gifts, So I guess
that makes sense. I guess Nancy marshmallows anywhere and good
Christmas GIFs. You better not killy like a bag of
hor I'll be pretty mad for a little bit, then
(02:46):
I'll be fine. I'm pretty sure you would just eat them. Yeah,
aren't you, Chris, which is how I prefer them. Oh yeah, yeah,
I totally yeah, I like mine. I don't know, I
like them both ways. I like nice, gentle toast, even toast,
and then I like burning the crap out of some
of them. So like marshmallow SMOs. These things are very important.
(03:10):
It's a different animal once it's burnt. It's true. Another
random facts leone. That's how I would say it in French.
I'm probably I'm gonna go ahead and say that it's
Linda Near. It's probably Linda Near. You're absolutely correct. It's
it's a noble county, Indiana, though it's it's the name
of This is the name of a town. Yes, and
it is the marshmallow capital of the world. Um. That
(03:34):
is because both Kraft and kid have marshmallow plants there
to arrival marshmallow plants in the same town. Interesting, they
have an annual marshmallow festival. When is it? I don't know.
I need to find that out. Marshmallows, meanwhile, are actually
about eight air sounds like something my dad would say
(03:59):
about my brain anyway. These days, most commercial marshmalls are
generally made up of some combination of sugar, egg whites, gelatine,
corn syrup flavorings like vanilla, and water with a cornstarch
or confectioner sugar coating. UM. But the first marshmallows were
(04:22):
derived from a muca see sap of the mallow plant
scientific name Alphea officia analysis which likes to grow in marshes.
Get it, marsh mallow. It makes complete sense. Marshmallow. Yes. Yes.
The plant grows to be like like two two to
four ft tall, that's like points six to about two
(04:44):
meters UM and it's native to West Asia and Europe
as big old pink flowers um. And most of the
sap is located in the roots, and in ancient times
and even into more modern times, it was thought to
have been a curative for so with throats and of
other issues. UM. It's scientific name Alphea comes from the
(05:06):
Greek root for for curing or healing, which brings us
to our history segment, because the first marshmallows go back
further than perhaps I thought, right all the way back
to two thousand b C, when ancient Egyptians would boil
sap extracted from the mallow plant in honey, sometimes mixing
(05:26):
in nuts to make individual spongey candy like things. And
this was a pineapple level treat, which is my new
bar for measuring luxury, by the way, and it was
reserved for royalty and gods, which I think royalty were
considered god, so technically it's sort of the same, right,
but that it had something to do with like ceremonies,
(05:47):
Oh what very interesting um. And from there the marshmallows
and medicinal reputation must have spread. Beginning sometime around about
ninth century BC, marshmallows were used not just for sore throats,
but to heal wounds, and marshmallow sap was made into
a bomb used in treating beastings and tooth thigs. Compresses
(06:09):
made up of ground marshmallow leaves were recommended by Arab
physicians as an anti inflammatory, and by the first century
CE Greek physician bios Karates wrote that the marshmallow worked
against wounds if you had any swelling in the glands
and flamed breast, swellings of the anus, dysentery, blood loss,
(06:30):
or diarrhea. Mm hmm um our our buddy. Pliny supposedly wrote,
whosoever shall take a spoonful of the mallows, shall that
day be free from all diseases that may come to him.
Wow the mallow, Oh, that's great. Um of fifteenth century
(06:51):
Italian cooking text written by Latina called On Right Pleasure
and Good Health, had an entire chapter dedicated to the
healing properties of the marshmallow plant. The marshmallow continued to
be prescribed as an anti inflammatory and throw it super
into the Renaissance. Also up through the eighteen hundreds at
least to the plant was sometimes eaten as a savory
(07:12):
dish um, not necessarily for its medicinal properties um, and
the leaves is a salad. The stems and roots would
be boiled and or pan fried. One recipe from eighteen
seventy five recommends frying the roots with onions and butter.
I mean frying anything with onions and butter. Sounds pretty good,
so just about yeah, although it would probably be kind
of mucasin is sort of like a like okra, maybe
(07:35):
a problem for me. And this just about brings us
to nineteenth century France and the modern day marshmallow, which
isn't necessarily curative. No, probably not. But first let's take
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(08:01):
we're back. Thank you. Sponsor. Into France a frequent center
for food trends, French candy makers were looking to create
a healthier indulgence and they came up with patte de
grimav are, pretty much the modern day marshmallow. They didn't
have modern day technology, though, so to arrive at their
(08:24):
version of the marshmallow, French candy makers whipped together marshmallow,
plant juice, eggs, and sugar until it was this foamy
paste that was heated, poured and shaped into molds one
at a time by hand. You could get them as
a lozenge or a bar and they were advertised as
(08:45):
this treat. Yeah. This quote from excuses great name Complete
Confectioner is a good example of that. Marshmallows are greamov
experienced a lot of popularity. Must be nice. Once David
came more wide spread outside of the royalty and God's
crowd fancy that, so demand was pretty high. But this
(09:07):
process of marshmallow making obviously took a lot of time
and you know, like money, so candy makers were looking
for a cheaper, faster way to make them. The solution
to their problem came in the form of the eighteen
to nineteenth century commercialization of of food grade dried gelatine,
which was first patented in powder form in America by
(09:28):
Peter Cooper in eighteen forty five. He's also the inventor
of the steam locomotive and was actually trying to figure
out like glue at the time. He wasn't looking for
a dessert, but that's sort of how it worked out. Yeah,
this commercial gelatine was was cheap and easily sourced, so
katie maker started using it to replace the marshmallow plant
(09:49):
extract while still being able to to keep the candy
you know, fluffy, pillowy. Right, But that also meant that
the reported health and it fits that the marshmallow route
brought to the marshmallow we're lost. Yes, And it was
still a slow process. You had to let the mallows
(10:10):
air dry and sheets or individually so that they'd form
a skin and then sprinkle them with starch, and the
processed a few hours per batch. However, by the late
eighteen hundred slash early nineteen hundreds, UM, the now mass
produced marshmallows spread to the United States and were available
in these little one cent tins. Everything in tins, everything
(10:32):
was great, UM thanks to the advent of the very
menacing sounding starch mogul system. It's just the process of
using these corn starch molds to to form the marshmallows.
Corn starch being a powder that is really good at
absorbing water. And yes, I just said adsorb, not absorb. Um.
(10:54):
Absorb means to suck something in. Adsorb means to kind
of stick something on. Um. On a molecular level, corn
starch and other absorptive materials like sand are are all
craggy and porous, and water molecules just kind of get
stuck there. So the powdery coating on modern marshmallows is
typically a combination of cornstarch and confection or sugar, which
(11:17):
forms a sort of protective barrier and keeps them moist
on the inside but dry enough on the outside that
you can pick them up without getting your fingers all sticky.
So a pressed corn starch mold was a really great
invention because it saved you a whole lot of mess um,
and the mallows would just pick up a coating of
the stuff as they were being pressed into shape. Nice.
But there were more improvements to be made, and it
(11:40):
was made by Alex Dumak in the US, in which
brings us to modern marsh mellow manufacturing. Yes, uh okay,
So the mass production of food frequently means treating food
items as though they are industrial materials, which I guess
at that point they are, right um. And Alex Dumac
(12:03):
the son of a marshmallow maker who had been mass
producing marshmallows in cast molds, you know, like the usual
way since the nineteen twenties. Alex figured out that you
could extrude marshmallows in food processing. Extrusion is when you
shove a batter through holes sounds, so I know, you
just you just shove it. Um. So sometimes with air
(12:25):
pressure or something like that. It's how stuff like like
cereals and pasta are generally made, and it works really
well with marshmallows. They can either be cut individually as
they come out of the extruder or formed into long
ropes and then cut in mass. And this machinery made
it possible to create a marshmallow in an hour flat.
A single marshmallow, well, I mean that probably more than
(12:46):
just the one, but you know, but from start to
finish that I mean, yeah, I have batch the batch
of marshmallows. I understand, just just checking away that it's
a good, good, good call. Um. The Dumac company, by
the way, makes um Campfire and Rocky Mountain brand marshmallows.
If you've ever seen a campfire marshmallow, that's them. And
he would soon license the patent out to Craft because
(13:08):
his company couldn't keep up with demand. They were so
much cheaper than traditionally produced marshmallows that he was just
like a guy can't handle it anymore. Craft, please take
this patent. Um. So they started using an extrusion process
for their marshmallows in the late nineteen fifties and marketed
them as jet puffed to kind of ride the Space
(13:30):
Races coat tails into commercial success. Uh. And it worked
really well. Um in that even ran a promotion where
kids could send in empty marshmallow bags in order to
enter to win a spaceship and non operative spaceship um
complete with astronauts suits and count down lights in this
projector that would show them star maps, which is just
(13:52):
he can cute. That is a price I would have
really wanted right now as a kid, I would totally
set that up in my backyard. But let's talk a
little bit here about the science of marshmallows, because there's
marshmallow science, of course there is, Okay, So so your
(14:13):
goal in making a marshmallow is to um, it's to
suspend air bubbles inside of a soft solid, giving the
marshmallows that spongey, smooshy texture texture that they have. And
you do that by heating up sugar and some kind
of jelling agent until they're they're both liquid and pliable,
and and then whipping them so that air bubbles get trapped,
and then letting them cool so so it all sets
(14:34):
back into a solid. Marshmallows are technically a stabilized foam,
and gelatine is a really good basis for this. Uh
it's it's a really good jelling agent. Um. Gelatine being
animal collagen, which is a structural protein that that makes
your body have shape rather than just being a puddle.
Without collagen, we would all just be puddles. Um collagen
(14:55):
can be stretchy and pliable, like it is in your
skin and tendons and muscles and blood vessels, and it
can it can also get mineralized and then be stiff,
like like in your bones. Food grade collagen is derived
from the skin and bones of cows and pigs, most
commonly these days, but can also be taken from fish
skin in bones if you want to make kosher gelatine
(15:16):
or otherwise, you know, gelatine that is friendly to people
who do not want to eat those mammals. And there
are a lot of plant derived jelling agents that can
be used in addition to or instead of gelatine in
order to give marshmallows different textures and or to h
to make them vegan like a soy protein gum, arabic
ag are other stuff derived from seaweed. Seeweed is a
(15:39):
great squidgy substance, It's true. Laura at Mauve Marshmallows was
experimenting with this. Visit her, Yeah, yeah, she She said
that she was working on kind of retexturizing in a
bunch of different ways and trying to and trying to
find like vegetarian and vegan alternatives too. M that other
thing um. Gelatine, by the way, solidifies at around owned
(16:00):
nine degrees fahrenheit a k a. Thirty five degrees celsius
and and melts at anything above that, which is why
things like marshmallows melt in your mouth. Ah h tasty
fun science. Indeed, well, now that we have covered marshmallows science,
it's time to take a look at marshmallow culture. But
(16:22):
first it's time to take a look at this ad
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and
I hope that all of you listeners enjoyed looking at
that ad. Um. I love looking at my audio as
(16:44):
it's my favorite so uh so marshmallows are are just
intensely fun and hilarious and they have a long history
of being so yes, I wish I had recorded the
look on my face as I did this research, because
it was just delightful. Um. The most obvious cultural thing
is probably this moore. The origin of this moore is
(17:07):
a bit of a mystery. As far back as the
Victorian era, we can find recipes for cookie sandwiches and
by the twentieth century, these sandwiches, some made with marshmallows,
were fairly common. The first published recipe for some More
popped up in courtesy of a Girl Scouts recipe titled
(17:30):
some More Ah Yeah, which called for smushing too coal
roasted marshmallows in a quote, Graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich.
That sounds like a lot. Yeah, I mean I've I've
done it. That's not out of the real possibility in
my book, I see, Okay, yes, continue. Some More was
(17:52):
shortened too s'more. And these days fifty of marshmallows purchased
in the summer go up and flame is over a
camp fire. There Graham cracker and chocolate cough goodness. Some
companies started selling countertop marshmallow rosters. Are baby quers, guaranteed
(18:13):
safe for children of any size. We used one of these,
I don't know that I would agree with that. I
don't think it was safe for us, let alone for children.
The largest more ever, by the way, waited sixteen hundred
pounds in the nineteen twenties. As well, in addition to
giving us some moores, the ninet twenties gave us jello
(18:33):
salads spiked with many marshmallows. That's just like the most artificial.
I don't know, it's just these two gelatin products. I don't.
I never want that collars. Yeah, I've never had it.
I never want those textures together. No, I mean I
would try it, but I've I've had it. My um.
(18:54):
One of my grandmother's is uh, very fond of the jellows.
A side salad. Oh, and that cracks me up. That
a side salad. That's great yellow salad. But what were
we trying to convince ourselves? Um, speaking of like childhood memories.
Oh my god, I totally forgot about rice crispies until
(19:15):
I was doing this research. Rice crispy treats. Yes, they're
very important. Yes, Rice Krispy treats were around before rice crispies.
The cereal was around, um yeah, and before mass produced
marshmallows were around. Originally, they use corn syrup and molasses
as the finder, and a woman who worked at Kellogg,
(19:37):
Mildred Day, is credited with cooking up this recipe for
Rice Kristi treats we know today to sell as a
fundraiser for the Campfire Girls group, and according to the U. S.
Patent Office, the name. Rice Crispy Treats first showed up
in just fairly recent um the first time you could
buy those prepackaged UM and fun fact about these, they
(20:03):
were viewed as a healthy, easy snack back in the
box advertising example from quote You're crisp completely different. The
grand party treat perfect as a light dessert between meal,
snack or lunchbox surprise for youngsters a few minutes, a
few pennies turned the treath. I I still I still
(20:26):
eat these, like basically whenever I have a chance to really.
Oh yeah, I don't think I've had once. It's like
second grade. They make me so happy or something about them.
I don't know. They're very they're gooey, they're crisp, completely different.
You could work for Rice Crispy Trees. Also, let us
(20:47):
not forget peeps, Yes, peeps. In nineteen fifty three, Sam
Born of the just Born Candy Company purchased the Rata
Candy Company and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which at the time for
use these marshmallow chicks, specifically for Easter by hand that
took twenty seven hours to make. Goodness. Just Born actually
(21:09):
wanted the jelly bean technology originally which jelly bean technology.
That's two great words when you put together. I love it.
And when they yes eventually and when they saw the
peeps that they were enchanted by them, and uh, originally
just born like the parent company. The original company released
(21:32):
peeps a sort of a specialty item around Easter, but
demand was so high they wanted a way to speed
up the process so they could produce And by four
they had automated the process with a machine called the depositor,
and they trademarked peeps. They made pumpkins for Halloween, Christmas,
trees for Christmas, and today five point five million peeps
(21:54):
are made a day at this one factory in Pennsylvania.
What yes, And they use the depositor all the way
until and Bethlehem drops a giant peep on New Year's
Eve instead of oh my goodness, yep. And in a
(22:17):
group of scientists calling themselves Heap Investigators set out to
test the indestructibility of peeps with the range of deadly
tools like cigarettes and liquid nitrogen, and found that peeps
are for the most part indestructible. Pretty impressive peeps. They're
very divisive. I find I really I really dislike them.
(22:40):
They're not food or I don't know. There's something about them.
It's very upsetting. I think it's the granular sugar cutting. Yeah,
maybe I don't. I have had enough peeps in so long.
I can't say Holly Fry loves them. She loves them.
If you guys ever want to get on Holly's good side,
senders and peeps. Yes. Meanwhile, in three kid In Company,
(23:05):
one of those two corporations that has a marshmallow plant
in Lincolneer, they created a six d and seventy one
pound marshmallow for that annual festival. Wow, I see marshmallows
are so light to me, so I imagine I'm trying
to imagine how big it would have had to Yeah,
(23:26):
they apparently diverted their entire line for in order to
make this giant molded anyway, I can only hope it
was eaten. I'm I'm sure, I'm sure it was carved up. So.
Another one I've never had one of these is moon pies.
I still can't believe that you've missed, man, I missed
a whole range of like cheap desserts. I mean, they're
(23:47):
not like good, but there I don't know, it's no,
they're they're real, They're real, worth while. Like I don't know,
they taste like plastic and nostalgia. Maybe maybe we'll try one.
According to Moonpies website, the idea for this product of
marshmallow sandwich between two Graham Kaka cookies and then dipped
in chocolate originated with Earl Mitchell, a traveling salesman who
(24:09):
asked a Kentucky coal miner what kind of snack would
you like to eat and got the description of what
is now known as the moonpie. In response, or as
the coal miner allegedly called it a snack as big
as the moon, hence the name. There you go. It
was cheap and it fit in the lunch pale, and
(24:29):
by n the Chattanooga bakery that served as the primary
producer of Moonpies was boxing hundreds a day. Apparently they
were improved when enjoyed with an R C Cola, to
the point that in the fifties you could hear Big
Bill listeners give me an RC cola and a moonpie
on the radio like top of the charts coal And
(24:53):
since two thousand eight, Mobile Alabama raises a moonpie on
New Year's Eve. I had no idea that so many
marshmallow based products were being used in New Year's It's excellent.
Michigan Stadium once had to outlaw marshmallows at football games
because students kept stuffing them with pennies and pelting the
(25:14):
opposing team and marching band with them. That's terrible because
you think it's not gonna hurt and know they're stuffed
with I'm sure it wasn't. I think it was just
enough penny to to give it weight, so I don't
think it was meant to hurt anybody. It's just a menace,
a marshmallow menace. They can be menacing. Um and another
(25:41):
favorite of mine, another thing, I've never tried marshmallow fluff.
You've never tried marshmallow fluff. I missed the whole thing.
I missed the whole You've never had a fluffer nutter sandwich. Okay, okay, okay,
cultural note, Yes we're talking, yes, okay, marshmallow fluff. This
stuff goes all the way back to the eight nineties
and for Archibald Query I know, whipped together some sugar
(26:04):
dried egg whites, corn syrup, and vanilla to make the
version we know today. It was marketed as a wrinkle treatment.
According to an ad I found it could even fill
out a shriveled old throat or bust all of my
favorite facts ever. Okay, well sure you know marshmallows are healing. Marshmallow, fluffy,
(26:29):
good marshmallow, the sap. Yeah, well this, yeah, I can
just imagine putting marshalls my face. It's stuck there, that miserable. Yeah, yes,
but I was so happy to find that. Anyway. Query
went door to door to sell his product, but the
(26:51):
sugar shortage caused by World War One had him looking
to sell his marshmallow cream business, and sel he did
for five dollars to two veterans, Alan Dirky and Fred Moer.
In nineteen twenty, Dirky and Moher started making what they
called to sweet marshmallow fluff, and by ninety nine they
had opened a large factory to keep up with demand,
(27:12):
and they sponsored a radio show of live music and
comedy called The Flufferettes. It aired before The Jack Benny
Show on twenty one New England stations, and it was
around until the nineteen forties. And before we move on
from them entirely, I read that their factory is an
example of a very like it was very ahead of
(27:36):
its time. It's impressive cool. Yeah, and that brings us
to another sandwiches and this was one of the favorite
facts of Laura at mal Vi. Uh. Yeah, they're um.
They're also associated with New England in particular, although I
picked them up in South Florida. In Emma Curtis and
(27:58):
her brother Armory, who were descendants of Paul Revere by
the way, started making and marketing snowflake marshmallow cream cram.
There's an accent mark over the E. I'm not sure
what to do with it anyway. Mma was really good
at getting the word out on radio shows and in brochures,
and during World War One she published a recipe for
(28:18):
the fluffer Nutter sandwich, or a sandwich of peanut butter
and marshmallow cream. Only she called it the Liberty Sandwich.
It wasn't. It wasn't called the fluffer Nutter until nineteen
sixty when an ad agency came up with the name
to to advertise the sandwich. Until then it was the
Liberty sandwich. Luffer Nutters were Liberty sandwiches. Oh, I love
(28:42):
it um. And to this day New Englanders are responsible
for half of global sales of marshmallow fluff. You can't
even get it everywhere in the US half of the world. Bunch. Yeah,
I wonder if you can get it on menus. Some
(29:02):
research to be done. I think they have it at
the Kroger. We can I mean we can go, we
can go find some good Yeah, but I want to
know if I can order it on a menu in
a restaurant. Oh, a fluffer and under sandwich. I feel
like they have one at Manny Is that at Manuel's
down Street? I could be I could be wrong. Check
that out. Yeah. Fluff's birthplace of Somerville, Massachusetts has an
(29:27):
annual what the Fluff Festival of September Love it Field
trip um Another bit of random history. In nine nine,
the manager of the Yankees was fired after getting into
a bar brawl with a marshmallow salesman. I wonder what
it was about. I'm not I'm not sure. I think
I don't know. He was apparently a Brawley kind of dude,
(29:48):
but in the Yankees manager or not that marshmallow salesman
that we know of, Although yeah, I think the supposedly
the the manager dude was kind of taunting him, like, like,
what's a big dude, like you'd do. And selling marshmallows
is the thing that he said mean uncalled for also
coming soon all marshmallow luck each arms, which despite being
(30:12):
the best part of lucky charms, are the worst types
of marshmallows in my opinion. Uh, they're called in the
food industry marbits, and they're basically just dried marshmallows because
the amount of moisture and regular marshmallows would totally ruin
a box of Cereal Miguel Moldy bad times. Um. Yeah,
there's there's a whole extensive drying process that they go through.
(30:38):
Oh boy. And they were also used as sort of
kind of fortune tellers. Yeah, you guys have heard of
the the Stanford marshmallow experiments. Probably maybe. Walter Michelle, a
Stanford psychologist, conducted a series of experiments towards the end
of the nineteen sixties where he'd set a single marshmallow
(31:00):
in front of a child participant and tell them they
could have one marshmallow immediately or two if they waited
a couple of minutes. Years later, he thought to reconnect
to these subjects in a termative. There's connection between the
kids who could exercise delaid gratification and academic performance and
social relationships. And yes, the study indicated that kids who
(31:23):
could wait it out did better in these two areas.
And yes, it has been replicated. There's been so much
written about these these marshmallow experiments, like a like a lot.
There's some really, I'll try to post some links on
social media. It's it's super fascinating stuff. Also, let us
never forget the stay puffed marshmallow man. Who could forget
(31:46):
the stay puffed marshmallow man? Stuff with nightmares? Uh? And
you can make your own marshmallows friends. Yes, as we
said at the top of the podcast, they're very much
different than what you'll buy in the store generally like
a grocery store, and there very much better. Yeah there, Okay,
(32:08):
they're both entirely worthwhile and a huge effing pain in
the neck. Uh. In order to do this, you're you're
going to need a stand mixer and a candy thermometer
or another probe type thermometer. And there are no arguments
to be made here. No, don't, don't, don't even start
with me. We're going to be dealing with edible napalm. Serious.
(32:30):
She's pointing the finger at me. She knows I've tried
this and failed. Uh So. Basically, you start by um
by a turning a packet of dried gelatine into a
squidgy gelatine by adding water. This is called blooming the
gelatine um and be by making a simple syrup equal
parts water and sugar, heated until they're both liquid um.
(32:51):
It's nice to sub end some corn syrup to help
keep the mixture stable a k A. Not to let
it crystallize, so you continue heating it, watching the temper.
You're carefully with your thermometer and swirling the pan instead
of stirring it. Starring can agitate any tiny rogue sugar
crystals in the syrup and set off a chain reaction
of crystallization. I don't want it. Uh So you you
(33:13):
heat this mixture until you reach the soft ball stage
of liquid sugar, which is degrees fahrenheit a k A
hundred and twenty degrees celsius, and in in candy making,
that's the name that the softball stage is the name
for when the density of a sugar syrup is such
that it will hold soft shape like a like taffy.
And you should be so careful please around this mixture
(33:38):
because it will stick to your skin if it splashes
on you and burn you very very badly. Um candy
is terrifying. Assuming that you're not in e er, you
add your bloomed gelatin and your soft ball stage syrup
into a stand mixer and then just kind of whip
the crap out of it for like fifteen minutes. Uh.
Then when it's basically done, you can add a little
(33:58):
bit of flavoring like vanilla extract, although you do have
to be very careful because anything to acidic or alcohol
e could could melt the sugar and gelatin structures and
and just leave you with it goose soup. I don't
want it. No. Then to finish it off, you you
kind of quickly scraped the mallow batter into a greased
pan and let it sit either uncovered or loosely covered
(34:22):
until it's firm a couple hours or up to overnight,
and then just cut him into chunks, cut him with
equal parts corn starch and sugar, and impress all of
your friends with delicious, light, fluffy home made marshmallows. And
I have been impressed by a friend with home made marshmallows.
So you you had to tell the tell the story.
It's a good story. I was about to leave for
(34:46):
eight months um to be in Australia, and I was
at the airport and a friend of mine showed up.
I didn't know she was going to show up to
say goodbye to me, and she has with her this container,
and she didn't it was in it. She opened it
with like all this drama, and it was. I couldn't
tell what it was at first because she hadn't cut
(35:07):
them up, but it was a layer of homemade marshmallows.
And I was both very delighted and happy she gave
them to me, and very confused as to why she
gave them to me right before I got onto a plane.
I hadn't even gone through security. I don't know, are
they gonna let me take this massive marshmallow with me?
(35:27):
Is this a gel? I'm not sure it's more than
three ounces. Yes, But they were delicious. They were vanilla flavored,
very good. I was impressed. Um. And and by the way,
of all the pain that marshmallows kind of are to
make cleanup is a breeze because they're made of water
soluble things. Sugar dissolves. It's so nice gelatin too. Yeah,
(35:52):
so that's a plus. All that hard work, but at
least the cleanup will be easy. Yeah, And that is
pretty much all we have on Marshmallows for Each day
brings us to listen to mail. You guys have been
sending it so much listener mail, I feel like we
could just read listener mail. Oh yeah, I think some.
(36:15):
I think a couple of the shows around here have
whole days where they just do a listener mail episode. Well,
we're nearing that point because everyone I read it. It's
it's it's great. Um. Tom B sent as a message
with the subject line pineapple. That's one of the best
subject lines that anyone could send I know. Ever excellently
(36:38):
crafted the history of humanity there, he wrote A long
time ago in college, I dated a woman who lived
in a house on campus with other students. One of
the other women living there was dating a baseball player,
and the team sold pineapples one year as a fundraiser.
The fruits were delivered in December, and of course the
woman living with my friend got one and she left
(37:01):
it in the house of her break and through January
because she was off. Then one night my girlfriend and
I were in the living room studying really when we
heard a loud noise in the kitchen. We went to
check on it and found the pineapple had exploded, flinging
pieces of fruit and juice all over the kitchen. There
was also the very strong odor of alcohol. The thing
(37:22):
had sat there and fermented until the pressure got to
be too great and it let go. The pieces of
fruit that had landed in more sanitary locations were very popular,
as the other women living there got home that night.
But it was a real mast to clean up. I
love that. I've never heard of that. Yeah, but that's amazing,
(37:43):
and I'm sure that the mess was incredible. Yeah. Pineapple
grenade ah oh. I also also pineapple liquor, I know,
like pineapple wine. All right. Jessica also wrote in with
this botox note. She says, I just finished Honey Part
(38:04):
two and I wanted to point out one thing about botox.
I know it's not food related, but it's really interesting.
I agree. Botox was initially developed by pediatric optimologists to
treat double vision or strub busmus. It wasn't until after
this treatment was being used for decades, I think that
it became used for cosmetic purposes. And hijacked by dermatology
(38:25):
and plastic surgery. As an optimologist, it's a bit of
a peeve that most people think botox was invented by
plastic surgeons for wrinkles, when in fact, it was created
by eye doctors to help kids with crossed eyes. Anyways,
back to bettering myself by putting all the new ways
to use honey in every moment of my life into action.
H Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's it's a very
(38:45):
it's a super useful substance. And uh, I hope that
I didn't gloss over that part too much in in
that Honey episode because it's it really is just an
absolute miracle worker for some things. Yeah, I think Honey was.
It was very difficult for us not to go on
tantons about oh talk, spotulism, bees. There's just so much
interesting stuff surrounding Honey, and we were like, there's enough
(39:08):
with Honey. We can can't afford to go in all
these directions. It will be a seventeen hour podcast, yeah us.
Uh And speaking of Honey, Amanda sent us an email
about her experience with meta honey and how it worked
closing and infected wound when nothing else was doing the
trick and apparently it's thick and it looks like honey,
(39:28):
and it smells like honey. She said to you even tried,
it wasn't quite as sweet. Um. And so that's pretty
cool to hear from someone who's used this modern take
on Honey's medicinal uses. Yeah. Absolutely. We We also did
put some of those tangents about bees and stuff into
a video that is currently available on Amazon. It is.
It's on Amazon Prime in the US. You don't have
(39:51):
to have Prime. You can watch it for free, but
you will get an AD and it's also available on
our website. Oh yeah, speaking of video, we we did
shoot a video up at Malvie Marshmallows when we were
there and we're working on getting that together. So perhaps
by the time this episode is out, it will it
(40:11):
will be out as well. We tried to time these things.
We try. Yeah, I always succeed. Um. And and thanks
so much to uh, to Malvie Marshmallows and Laura there
for working with us and giving us a little bit
of marshmallow knowledge. Yeah, he was awesome. Yeah. Thanks also
to Tristan McNeil, our audio engineer, and to you guys
(40:33):
for listening. If if you guys would like to send
us emails about fruit bombs or anything else. We have
an email address, yes it is food Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. If you're not into that whole
email thing, um, then we've got a Twitter and Facebook.
Both of those are our handles are food Stuff HSW
(40:54):
We're on Instagram as food stuff Simple. We hope that
we'll hear from you, and we hope that in the meanwhile,
lots of good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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