Seeking An Honest Marshmallow

A tale of deep weeds and strange experiments, with a satisfying end

My quest for a "real" marshmallow began when a client asked me to produce a natural "Crispy Treat." The idea was to get some organic marshmallows and some organic rice-crisp cereal and re-create the old standard in a healthy new form. Simple, I thought.

Unfortunately, there are no organic marshmallows in stores, and while Whole Foods Market stocks natural, handcrafted marshmallows, these are specialty items — too fancy (and too expensive) to be rendered into crispy treats.

I did find one mass-produced "natural" marshmallow. Unlike Kraft "Jet-Puffed" and other mainstream brands, "Elyon Kosher Marshmallows," made in Israel, do not contain tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial flavor or artificial color. To avoid conflicts with the intricate laws of Kashrut, the kosher mallows are made with fish gelatin from Kosher sturgeon instead of the "normal gelatin." But these, too, proved prohibitively expensive.

Besides, by that time, we had come to realize that every brand of crispy rice cereal that's organic is also whole grain, and the sample batches we ran just didn't pass the taste test for a friendly crispy treat.

Even when it became clear that organic crispy treats just weren't going to fly, I couldn't stop thinking about marshmallows. In my garden I have some plants that were introduced to me as "Mallows." Studded with pink, hibiscus-shaped blossoms, they are almost as tall as the hollyhocks they closely resemble. I wondered if these plants might be the herb Marsh Mallow, which eventually lent their name to the now ubiquitous candy puffs. They are not.

Marsh Mallow (Althaea officinalis) is seldom afforded space in gardens. Instead, "it grows in damp meadows, by the sides of ditches, by the sea and on the banks of tidal rivers," writes Mrs. Maude Grieve in "A Modern Herbal" (online at www.botanical.com). I think she is saying that real Marsh Mallow is a weed.

Nevertheless, the plant has been appreciated for centuries as a pharmaceutical, according to Grieve, "for inflammation, outwardly and inwardly."

In ancient Egypt and into medieval times, I learned, Marsh Mallow root was mixed with honey to make a kind of candy that soothed coughs and bellyaches. According to a history page on the Kraft Web site, real mallow was replaced with gelatin in the late 1800s. The mysterious and patented "jet-puff" system was introduced in 1953.

In Seattle, a search for real Marsh Mallow from which I might formulate my own medicinal candy puffs led me first to PCC Natural Market, where I have found other food-a-ceuticals in the past. This time, I had no such luck. However, a nice young man stocking the shelves pointed out Marsh Mallow root in capsules and a sort of tincture made with the "sap."

"If you want the actual root," he said, "you'll have to visit one of our local herb stores." I accepted business cards for "The Herbalist" in the Ravenna neighborhood and "Dandelion Botanical Company" in Ballard. Both stores did indeed carry genuine Marsh Mallow, and I stocked up on some rather strange-looking fiber and powder. Within 24 hours I was boiling a syrup of evaporated cane juice (organic sugar) and whipping up a batch of all-natural, medieval-style marshmallows.

The results were what you might call dubious. Or weird. OK, beyond weird. Imagine a slurry of parsnips with the texture of Silly Putty. The taste was strangely comforting, but it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the things we toast over campfires or plunk into mugs of hot cocoa. To make "real" marshmallows, suitable for crispy treats and other standard marshmallow fun, I eventually abandoned the use of real Marsh Mallow, just like the commercial manufacturers.

Greg Atkinson is a contributing editor for Food Arts magazine and a culinary consultant. He can be reached at greg@northwestessentials.com. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at barrywongphoto@earthlink.net.