Marshmallow

Last night I dreamt I ate a ten-pound marshmallow. When I woke up the pillow was gone.

Tommy Cooper

Warning  Warning  Warning

Do not read this out loud, especially with children in the room.

What if I told you that marshmallows date back around 2000 BCE? What if I told you that the Ancient Egyptians were the first to make them? Would you believe Olive and Tilly? Well, sit back, do not have any liquid in your mouth because it is true. It was used to calm coughs, sore throats, and to heal wounds.

Tilly: What fascinates me is how marshmallows came about. Who thought of taking the sap from marshmallow root, adding sugar and whatever, to make the remedy. (The Egyptians squeezed sap from the mallow plant and mixed it with nuts and honey.) Were the women (herbalists) who discovered its properties burnt at the stake? Bound to have been women …

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans also prized it for its mystical significance and used it in rituals to invoke divine protection and to foster love and fertility. Protection spells, spiritual growth, purification and dream work numbered amongst the rituals.

References to this plant were made in Homer’s “Iliad,” over 2,800 years ago,

In the 15^th Century, Platina in the book “De Honesta Voluptuate et Valetudine, On Right Pleasure and Good Health” devoted book IV, section 8 to “On the Seasoning of Mallow” charting the history and the healing of the mallow plant.

Tilly: Pliny asserted marshmallow cured all diseases of man. The Celts prevented evil spirits from hitching a ride to heaven by putting the flat seed disks over the eyes of the deceased. The plant’s tiny hairs made it a remedy for hair loss. The edible flowers saved many from starvation during famines. How did it become associated with candy? The leftover water from cooking any part of the plant can be used as a substitute for egg white in making meringues.

In 1875, marshmallow was still used for medicinal use and as a drink to cure sore throats. See “Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations [Cassell, Petter, Galpin:London] (p. 410)”

Tilly: While it cannot cure all diseases (whatever Pliny says), parts of the plants have been successful in treating coughs, sore throat, skin inflammation, fever, urinary ailments, and constipation and is still used in complementary medicine. (Complementary – such remedies were around long before allopathic medicine stepped in and took all the credit.)

So just when did the marshmallow come about. Well look to France in the nineteenth century.   In 1850, was when the first method of manufacturing it was extremely expensive and slow.   It became so popular that candy makers started using corn starch molds to the marshmallow due in part it made them faster. But still Doctors used the sap and combined with egg whites and sugar making a hard meringue and used as medicinal candy to calm sore throats, suppress coughs and what for it… “Heal wounds”.

I know France. Finally something that originated there.

By the 1900s, marshmallows became available for mass consumption and sold as penny candy.

Tilly: True marshmallow – and I’m not talking about those from a bag – is nothing more than an Italian meringue set with gelatin. Claire Saffitz

Fast forward again to 1927, the Girl Scout Handbook shared a recipe for roasted marshmallows combined with chocolate bars and graham crackers, known today as s’mores.  The recipe and the Girl Scout Handbook can be found here. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89017190521&seq=75

Yes, it is downloadable. Enjoy. Side note: it may be the first published recipe, makes you wonder where they got it.

Tilly: Heavens, don’t you remember chucking all the ingredients you love into a saucepan, mixing them and then baking, roasting, frying. Why wouldn’t girl guides (scouts, if you insist) put chocoloate, biscuits and marshmallows together?

Alex Doumakes was the son of James Doumakes, founder of Doumak, Inc. in 1921. In 1948, Alex Doumakes patented the extrusion process, revising the production, which made them faster and more productive. The mixture is pressed through tubes and cut into pieces, cooled and packaged. That is what has made them a sweet treat and used in those family recipes.

Tilly: I am rather partial to Turkish Delight … Lokum, as it is known in Turkey, is credited to the confectioner, Haci Bekir Effendi, in Constantinople, sometime around 1776. Love the addition of nuts and rose or orange water …

But, no, no marshmallow in fthese delicious goodies. Just thought I’d throw this into the arena.

I’ll chuck this bon mot  at well: Ancient Egyptians were the first to enjoy the gooey treat called marshmallow as early as 2000 BC. The treat was considered very special and it was reserved for gods and royalty. So remember to wear your crown when you eat it!

Talking of crowns, some food for thought: Two thousand years ago, Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave, and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child. – Billy Crystal

So what about today, 2024… there are three manufacturers in the United States, Kraft, Doumak, and Kidded Company.

Tilly:  The marshmallow capital of the world is in Ligonier, Noble County, Indiana. Americans buy more than 90 million pounds annually.

So where did all those recipes come from, you know the ones that became one of the ingredients like cake, candies, and that Jell-O dish your grandmother used to make for family get-together. That ladies and gentlemen, is called Marketing. From recipe booklets to magazine adverts, and they are still being made today.

So what is your favorite recipe using marshmallows?

Tilly: Well, definitely not pumpkin topped with marshmallows … they are rather good cut up and mixed into ice cream, or hot chocolate. Very useful for a quick dessert – put berries or sliced peaches in a shallow dish, cover with marshmallows and slap in the oven or under a grill. Putting them on a skewer and toasting in front of a fire – love pulling off the toasted bit and putting the innards back for seconds. Dunking them in melted chocolate keeps me out of mischief, too.

Olive and Tilly-

Watch the sunrise at least once a year, put a lot of marshmallows in your hot chocolate, lie on your back and look at the stars, never buy a coffee table you can’t put your feet on, never pass up a chance to jump on a trampoline, don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones.

 H. Jackson Brown, Jr.