By Meryle Evans

"A layer of fresh vanilla-rose marshmallow and chocolate ganache sandwiched between two freshly baked honey-cinnamon grahams, smothered in milk or dark chocolate, left plain or topped with walnuts, pecans, and gray sea salt." That's Heather Foley's signature S'mores Bar, so popular at her Azure Chocolat shop in Centerport, Long Island, that they are now carried by Whole Foods Markets in Manhattan.

Azure Chocolat's S'mores Bar.

Jacques Torres, The French Culinary Institute's Dean of Pastry Arts, prefers his s'mores open faced, layering homemade graham cracker, chocolate, and a flat marshmallow toasted over an open flame, while Heather Chittum, pastry chef at Hook in Washington, DC, recalls her Brooklyn background with Big City S'mores, a playful reminiscence of life among tall buildings and traffic: A shot glass of milk sits next to a marshmallow-topped bittersweet chocolate tower alongside a buttery tart shell filled with ganache and fluff brûlé.

Down in Tennessee, Blackberry Farm owner Sam Beall dotes on s'mores, so executive pastry chef Maggie Davidson created a bûche de Noël for the boss (featured in the September 2007 issue of Food Arts) that starts, Davidson explains, "with a light flourless chocolate cake rolled up with a marshmallow filling flavored with vanilla bean-infused Jack Daniels and crunchy bits of whisky-laced toffee. The roll is then placed on a graham cracker rectangle and enrobed with two coats of shiny chocolate ganache. A slice of the bûche is served with a Dairy Queen-like swirl of warm spicy cocoa, dispensed from a siphon gun, with additional shards of buttery toffee and a swirl of chocolate sauce."

	Big City S'mores by Heather Chittum. Photo courtesy of Starchefs.com.

So many variations on a theme! This beloved roasted-over-an-open-fire treat made its debut as a recipe in a Girl Scout manual back in 1927, but in recent years it has become a favorite for everyone from campers to pastry chefs. It's hard to pinpoint when retro became fashionable, but back in the 90s two funky New York restaurants, First and DT UT, had patrons dipping and melting do-it-yourself-at-the-table s'mores, and by 2000 Stephen Durfee, then pastry chef at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, helped s'mores make the leap from simple to sophisticated. Now we have a National S'mores Day on Aug 10th; a book by Lisa Adams, S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion; and, from celebrated San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti, the S'mores Kit containing eight vanilla-bean marshmallows, graham crackers, and a bittersweet chocolate bar.

Meanwhile, on its own, the marshmallow has morphed into an American icon. There are candies galore, from GooGoo Clusters and Peeps to cookbook author Alice Medrich's luscious caramel-bottom chocolate-coated marshmallow squares. Favorite regional cookies like Mallomars, MoonPies, and whoopie pies all have their partisans. Designer marshmallows from DeBrand in Fort Wayne, Indiana and California's Plush Puffs even rated an article in the Wall Street Journal, and a lighthearted marshmallow-themed conference at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington included papers on its history, technology, and place in American culture.

A picture perfect specimen, made from Recchiuti's S'mores Kit.

Such versatility would have amazed the early Egyptians, who in 2000 BC were squeezing the sticky sap from the root of the mallow plant that grew wild in the marshes, mixing it with honey, and serving the confection to the pharaoh and royal family. The plant, botanically Althaea officinalis, was known for its healthful attributes throughout the ancient world. Mallows were considered one of the purest sacrifices to the Greek god Apollo at Delos, and the Roman poet Martial ate mallows to improve his digestion.

The plant's use as a panacea endured into the eighteenth century when French and English pharmacists whipped sugar and egg whites with the sap, which acted as a binding colloidal agent, and made lozenges for use as a sore throat remedy. But the root had a bitter taste, so nineteenth century confectioners just eliminated the mallow and substituted gum arabic. French confectioners poured the mixture into starch-filled trays printed with small molds to form the sweets they call pâte de guimauve. William Jarrin, author of The Italian Confectioner (1820), made marsh-mallow paste by dissolving the gum and mixing it with apple juice, orange flower water, and sugar:

	The all-important root of the mallow plant.

"Dry it to a thick consistence, taking care to have little fire, covered with ashes, under it; then whisk to a snow six whites of eggs, and add them to your paste. Continue to stir the mixture to prevent it sticking... You will know when it is done, if on applying some of the paste to the back of your hand it does not stick; this method of making it is rather tedious, but it is the best." For anyone who wants to know how an early nineteenth century marshmallow tasted, there is an updated version of Jarrin's recipe in Laura Mason's Sugar-Plums and Sherbet.

By the time marshmallows reached these American shores in the late nineteenth century, new methods and ingredients made the process less tedious. Gelatin replaced the gum, and wooden (later, steel) mogul machines printed starch trays and moved them along a conveyor to be filled with the hot mixture. By the early 1900s, dozens of American factories were turning out marshmallows, along with jars of creamy spreads, like Hip-o-Lite and Snowflake Marshmallow Crème, that quickly found a place in home pantries.

The floor of Curtis Marshmallow factory (Melrose, MA).

The spread best known today is Marshmallow Fluff, first made in 1917 in the kitchen of Archibald Query of Somerville, Massachusetts who sold it door-to-door. After World War I, two local entrepreneurs, H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower, purchased the formula and started the company that today churns out 125 jars of fluff a minute. There is, of course, an annual fluff festival and a trove of Fluffernutter trivia, including the recent unsuccessful attempt by a Massachusetts legislator to bar the beloved but nutritionally-challenged peanut butter and Fluff sandwich in schools. For recipes, there is The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook written by Justin Schwartz in 2004.

	Durkee-Mower's much beloved marshmallow crème.

While Archibald Quercy was making his rounds in 1917, the South's favorite marshmallow filled sandwich, the MoonPie, was born at Tennessee's Chattanooga Bakery. In The Great American Moon Pie Handbook, Ronald Dickson attributes the origin to Earl Mitchell, a salesman for the bakery who asked a group of coal miners what snack they might enjoy. The answer was something large and filling for their lunch pails, about as big as the rising moon. Currently over 50 million of the chocolate-coated marshmallow-filled cookies are shipped from Tennessee across the country. Meanwhile, New Yorkers were munching Mallomars, introduced in 1913. With their graham cracker base, marshmallow filling, and enrobed chocolate, could they have been the inspiration for s'mores?

How Famous Chefs Use Marshmallows. see photo

New England and Pennsylvania both claim credit for another fluff-filled snack food: the whoopie pie. The Berwick Cake Company in Roxbury, Massachusetts began making the chocolate cookie sandwiches in the 1920s, but a recipe in Durkee-Mower's 1930s Yummy Cookbook calls it an Amish whoopie pie. Another food history mystery to solve!

The great success of marshmallow merchandise soon tempted home bakers and restaurant chefs to dream up new desserts. One of the earliest American recipes for homemade marshmallows appears in a fundraising cookbook by the Ladies of St. Paul, Minnesota in 1888. It was a mixture of white gum arabic, water, and powdered sugar, flavored with orange flower or rose water or vanilla, which "if preferred it may be colored a delicate pink." Gelatin soon replaced the gum arabic, whipped egg whites added body, and myriad flavor variations were concocted, including caramel, lemon, peppermint, and berries. Pamphlets published by firms like Hip-O-Lite and the Angelus Campfire Company provided "the individual recipes of the best chefs in America"—luscious layer cakes with glossy marshmallow frostings, chocolate ice box cake, Pineapple Marlow made with melted marshmallows and crushed pineapple, and Campfire orange walnut fudge.

	Marshmallow Fluff magnate Fred L. Mower. see photo

One Campfire booklet, How Famous Chefs Use Marshmallows, published in the 1920s, included thumbnail sketches of each chef, excerpted from an article in the New Yorker. The celebrated Louis Diat of The Ritz-Carlton New York, described as a long and slender chef who supports three French orphans, suggested marshmallow-topped baked apples; Pierre Berard at the then recently opened New Yorker Hotel was deemed "a conceited fellow, [who] by his own admission, fears no one or anything, and, unlike most chefs, likes to eat... He once prepared what President Hoover called the best meal he ever ate, and is now at work on a book The Life of a Chef." Berard's contribution was pineapple fritters topped with oven-glazed marshmallows. As to Roger Cretaux at the Roosevelt, he is "so ample that most of the horses in Central Park dislike him, but he rides anyway.... He is a friend of Babe Ruth, and the Babe sometimes drops into the Roosevelt kitchen and gorges himself." Perhaps the Yankee star gobbled up Petit Ruth bonbons made with chocolate-dipped marshmallows or Cretaux' Teddy Bear Cave Salad, composed of date-stuffed marshmallows and toasted marshmallows arranged on lettuce leaves to resemble an open cave.

Pies made with Fluff, from a Durkee-Mower cookbook.

Marshmallows marched on into the 1950s with ethereal desserts like Grasshopper Pie, made with mini-marshmallows, créme de menthe, and créme de cacao in a chocolate cookie crumb crust. A new extrusion process patented by Alex Doumak in 1948 sped the manufacturing process, and soon after Kraft created jet-puffed marshmallows infused with air.

However, as our palates became more sophisticated, the marshmallow suffered burnout, often relegated to toppings for holiday sweet potato casseroles and Schrafft's ice cream sundaes. But, rediscovered by a new generation of chefs, marshmallows made a bravura comeback in the 1990s.

Alain Ducasse included a recipe for orange blossom marshmallows in his Grand Livre de Cuisine: Desserts and Pastries and served them at his Michelin three-star Le Louis XV in Monaco. They have also been a favorite of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, coiled high in jars on the dessert cart and snipped off tableside at his eponymous Manhattan restaurant, while Ritz-Carlton pastry chef Jerome Girardot in Washington, DC suggests coconut-rum and strawberry marshmallows for a dairy-free dessert. Maury Rubin at City Bakery in New York and Nancy Silverton at Campanile in San Francisco were among the first to plop homemade marshmallows into rich hot chocolate, now no longer a novelty, but still a good gambit. Pastry chef Jaime Sudberg of Stanton Social served hot chocolate shots with marshmallows and a warm chocolate s'more cake filled with marshmallow cream with a mini glass of ice cold milk and housemade graham cracker at the Sweet festival in Manhattan last November. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Chocolate Show, chef Geoffrey Zakarian transformed his Champagne Lounge at Country into the Bon Bon Shop where pastry chef Hsing Chen whipped up peanut butter hot chocolate with marshmallow cream.

	DeBrand's gourmet marshmallow, flavored with berry juice.

Beyond partnering with steaming cocoa, marshmallow creations have been starring on restaurant menus. Wayne Harley Brachman was among the first of the current crop of enthusiasts, starting with sweets for the staff at Odeon in the 1980s, then at Mesa Grill. "I was inspired by retro desserts," recalls Brachman, now the pastry chef at Porter House New York at the Time Warner Center," and began working on new adaptations of old classics." One of his favorites is a no-bake chocolate cake with a graham cracker crust, ganache, peanut butter ice cream, and roasted marshmallow. At Porter House, his marshmallow creme, made with Italian meringue, is featured in a do-it-yourself vanilla ice cream sundae, along with hot fudge sauce, brandied cherries, and walnut and butter caramel. Marshmallow and ice cream have an obvious affinity. The Titanic Sundae at Serendipity; chef Michael Wagner's double chocolate chip cookie and marshmallow ice cream sandwich at Lola's on Harrison in Hollywood, Florida; and in a vanilla bean and marshmallow milkshake with chai-pear reduction Michael La Scola, chef/owner of American Seasons in Nantucket, made for a James Beard Foundation dinner last year.

Chicago chef Steve Chiappetti's Junk Food Cart.

Marshmallows on the menu often signal fun and nostalgia. Max Brenner, Chocolate by the Bald Man, with two New York establishments, dreams up concoctions, like a dark chocolate ganache burger with toasted bun and melted marshmallows. Out in Chicago, at Viand Restaurant, Steve Chiappetti's dessert "Junk Food Cart" includes a large banana-infused marshmallow, and at the Pluckemin Inn in Bedminster, New Jersey, pastry chef Joseph Gabriel whips up chocolate and hazelnut marshmallow pops. "It's a fun approach to a classic," says Gabriel, who starts with an Italian meringue with gelatin that he mixes with chocolate and hazelnut paste and refrigerates in prepared molds until set. Then he pushes in pop sticks, dips them halfway into chocolate, and sprinkles the pops with cocoa nibs and a touch of Maldon sea salt. "And," he adds, "you can use all different kinds of flavors."

Another contemporary approach to a classic is pastry chef Elizabeth Belkind's pumpkin pie, served at Grace in Los Angeles—a rich custard of squash braised with honey, brown sugar, and vanilla in a graham cracker crust with a fluffy toasted marshmallow topping. At The Modern at New York's Museum of Modern Art, pastry chef Marc Aumont leaves tradition behind for a very modern white chocolate crémeux, pomegranate gelée, lime marshmallow, and mango sorbet, as does Matt Upchurch chef/owner at M. Stephen's, High Point, North Carolina. Upchurch, ushered in 2008 at a James Beard Foundation New Year's Eve dinner with a tour-de-force Swiss chocolate, marshmallow, mint, and almond soufflé with gold leaf, starting with a standard chocolate soufflé base and adding melted marshmallows, finely slivered almonds, and minced fresh mint.

No longer a pure sacrifice to the gods, or a medicinal remedy, from the campfire to a gold leaf-topped soufflé, the marshmallow is most certainly white magic.

ORANGE BLOSSOM MARSHMALLOWS

• see recipe

GRASSHOPPER PIE

• see recipe

Meryle Evans is a food journalist and culinary historian who has written extensively about the world's cuisines for over twenty years. She was an editor of the American Heritage Cookbook, the Horizon Cookbook, and the eighteen volume Southern Heritage Cookbook Library. As a contributing editor at Food Arts, Meryle has covered cooking and culture from Australia to Chile, Turkey to Tunisia for the past fourteen years. She also lectures on various aspects of culinary history and was the curator of "The Confectioners Art," an exhibit at the American Craft Museum. Other food-related activities include judging the James Beard and IACP cookbook awards and the Tabasco Community Cookbook Competition.