When you hear the word s'more you think of camping, sitting by a campfire and we think of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. I have been involved in the Boy Scouts as a youth and leader for 33 years .And I seen and ate my share of s'mores. I saw marshmallows go up in a ball of flame and fall in the fire . It was so bad we created a s'more making class the proper why to toast a marshmallow . By the end of the class the kids became professional marshmallow toasters . So who created the s'more and what does s'more mean. to answer those questions I went back to my scouting roots and did some research and this is what I found.
The History of S'mores:
The first recipe for the campfire treat is 95-years-old, but the seeds of the s'more go back much further. The very first marshmallow came from a plant called Althaea officinalis. Early civilizations, including the ancient Greeks and Romans, used the root and leaves of the plant for medicinal purposes, often to help with inflammation (and as a laxative). In fact, the word "Althaea" comes from the Greek "altheo" meaning "to cure." But it was the French who first marketed marshmallow as a treat rather than a medicine, combining the root juice of the plant with eggs and sugar beaten into a foam. They formed the soft paste into a lozenge and called it pâte de guimauve. Its purpose was two-fold: to soothe the throat and taste good. But this treat was expensive and labor intensive, much like the marshmallow-based medicines of the day. By the end of the 19th century, gelatin replaced the juice from the actual plant because it was a close approximation in taste and form, but a much cheaper alternative.
There are a few potential precursors to the iteration of s'mores we know today. Victorian-era funeral cakes, specially prepared upon the death of a loved one, sometimes included chocolate and marshmallow. During the 1890s, a marshmallow roasting fad took hold of summer resort towns in the Northeast. Places like Asbury Park in New Jersey hosted such events, which often drew a young crowd given that newspapers at the time called the roasts an "excellent medium for flirtation" since people could nibble off each other's sticks. Mallomars, which are essentially s'mores in cookie form, first appeared on shelves in 1913. Moonpies, basically a s'more cousin, debuted a few years later.While all of these tasty innovations got the idea of roasted marshmallow with chocolate and graham crackers into people's heads (and mouths), it wasn't until 1927 that it all came together in gooey symphony.
The first official recipe for a s'more came out in the 1927 Girl Scout guidebook, Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.
While the book was meant to give advice on how to be a good Girl Scout (always get a parent's permission before hiking!), its lasting legacy was the "Some More." Originally intended to feed eight hungry scouts, the recipe, which was later credited to a troop leader named Loretta Scott Crew, calls for 16 graham crackers, eight bars of plain chocolate, and 16 marshmallows. Next, it says to toast the marshmallows to a "crispy, gooey state." Then, put the marshmallow on top of a chocolate bar and in between two graham crackers, and violà, you got a "Some More." It's unclear when the name was shortened to simply "s'more," but various Girl Scout publications referred to the treat as "Some More" until at least 1971.
So now that you know the history of the s'more you can tell the story the next time you're sitting around the campfire making them .
There are lots of ways to make a s'more these days. instead of using a gram cracker some people use cookies . And instead of the chocolate bar people use different candy bars and some use peanut butter .
Resources for this post came from scouting sites and the food network site.
I will be sharing different s'more recipes in upcoming posts .
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