Food History
The Forgotten Inventor of the Fluffernutter Sandwich
A history of the nostalgic treat, and my history with it.
I never cared for Fluffernutter sandwiches as a kidâthey always struck me as a kind of ânothingâ food. Two slices of white bread thickly smeared with peanut butter and a spread made from corn syrup, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla flavoring amounted to little more than a sickly-sweet mushy mess. Iâd eat them only at friendsâ houses, and was always happier to have mac and cheese or tuna salad instead.
In the fall of 2011, I moved from Delaware to Massachusetts for college and found myself, all of a sudden, completely friendless. After a few drab meals in its grey dining hall, the freshmen classâmyself includedâstarted craving snacks.
I realized I could be the source of said snacks.
Recalling the joy Fluffernutters had brought my childhood friends, I stocked up on jars of Fluff and peanut butter, casually leaving them in my windowsill, hoping that the sight would lure in any potential new friends to stop, chat, linger. As that first semester unfolded and my neighbors-turned-friends made repeat visits to chat and share an ooey-gooey fluff sando, I realized that my friendship trap had worked.
The case can be made that free food of any kind would have successfully wooed a pack of college students. But the Fluffernutter, somehow, seemed especially effective. Although I didnât know it at the time, I had unwittingly brought the sandwich back to its birthplaceâand served it to its target demographic.
As Michael Stern, co-founder of regional food guide Roadfood and co-author of The Lexicon of Real American Food, tells me, Massachusetts was the epicenter of not only the Fluffernutter sandwich, but its most famous ingredient.
âIn the second decade of the 20th century, Fluff was invented twice, both times in Massachusetts,â he explains.
The first time was in 1913, when small time confectioners Amory and Emma Curtis created Snowflake Marshmallow CrĂ©me in their home kitchen in Melrose. Just four years later, another small time candy maker, Archibald Queryâunaware of the Curtisesâstarted selling his marshmallow cream door-to-door in Somerville. Stymied by the wartime sugar shortage, Query eventually sold his formula to businessmen H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower, who rebranded it as Toot Sweet Marshmallow Fluff, which eventually became the Marshmallow Fluff we see on shelves today.
Because his recipe gave rise to the most prominent Fluff product, Query is usually credited as its sole inventor, though the Curtises preceded him by four years. Emma Curtis was also the first person to make a Fluffernutter sandwich, Stern says. In addition to her signature Snowflake Marshmallow CrĂ©me, Curtisâs âLiberty Sandwichâ called for protein-packed peanut butter and oat- or barley-based âwar bread,â in adhering to government recommendations to consume less meat and wheat amid World War I.
Likely because of its association with the war and rationing, The Liberty Sandwich remained largely unpopular until the 1960s: âThis was around the time Rice Krispie treatsâalso made with Fluffâwere getting popular as one of the multitude of easy, back-of-the-box recipes marketed to efficiency-minded housewives,â Stern explains, suggesting that Fluff had a ready-made customer base for its trademarked sandwich. Once they rebranded Curtisâs sandwich with a new name, the Fluffernutter, the rest was history: A wallet-friendly, ultra-sweet treat was born and its wartime origins forgotten.
The Fluffernutter saw its rise, peak, and fall all within the same decade. Itâs since come to be seen as dated junk food, with Massachusetts legislators even limiting how often Fluffernutters can be served in school cafeterias.
Despite its lack of nutritional value, the Fluffernutter is a deeply sentimental, if not formative, food for Massachusetts residents. That same year, State Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein filed a bill to make it the official sandwich of Massachusetts.
But thereâs more to Massachusetts residentsâ support of Reinstein's bill and attendance of annual Fluff-focused festivals than just fandom. Canonizing the Fluffernutter in history means this mere sandwich is not just singularly important, but collectively. Its public validation, in turn, validates all personal histories in its orbit.
Where some modern-day Fluffernutter supporters act in defense of a beloved childhood snack or memory, others have come to love it for its throwback charm.
âNew generations of foodies find them an amusing retro artifact from the unsophisticated culinary pastâsomething like Spam or Jell-O,â Stern says, adding that attaining novelty status has granted the Fluffernutter a second wave of popularity, 50 years later. This dualityâthe Fluffernutterâs simultaneous heart-warming nostalgia and retro unpretentiousnessâis exactly what made it such an enticing treat for my liberal arts ilk. We were just the type to ride Fluffâs revival wave.
Holed up in snowbound western Massachusetts living off thin dining hall coffee and forties of malt liquor, the innocent-yet-ironic taste of the Fluffernutter resonated with our homesick hearts. Even those who didnât grow up with it called it âcute,â âdope,â âexactly what I needed right now.â As comforting as it is kitsch, the Fluffernutter was the perfect snack for housewives on a budget, and ironic hipsters secretly yearning for a taste of uncomplicated times.
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Written by: Sara Coughlin
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âłShe put 6 ounces of ice cream in a 5-ounce dish and poured one and a half ounces of hot fudge on top of it, and it dripped down onto the silver dish,âł Frank Wyman Jr., a former Baileyâs owner, said with reverence. âłBeautiful concept. Beautiful product.âł
Later, Baileyâs supplied mail-order chocolates to Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and John F. Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy Sr., the late presidentâs father, was among the many Boston brahmins who kept his candy preferences on record at the flagship store on Temple Place, at the edge of the Boston Common.â https://apnews.com/7b32edb3bd0c7e85f3e02de48a0c5b27
And how about Jimmies? According to the story on the Brighamâs Restaurant menu (ps -Brighamâs is THE worldâs very best ice cream, especially the Mocha Chip):
When a little boy went to Brighamâs for his birthday ice cream with his family, his mom shaved a little of a chocolate bar on top to make his special. When his siblings asked for the same, his mom replied,, â No, those are Jimmyâs because it is his birthday. â.
Jimmies are chocolate, but that multi-color stuff is âsprinklesâ.
About jimmies. But of course all the kids liked jimmies in their sundaes (though I was more of a chocolate fudge sauce kind of girl!)
I would indulge in it only occasionally as I always preferred my PB sandwiches straight upâ no jelly or jam despite the Cellar full of home/made preserves that my grandmother always had on handâ those were best relished By the spoonful, straight out of the jar or on toast! But from time to time, you just HAD to have a Fluffernutter, usually As a snack after school. And for the holidays, my grandmother would use Fluff to make fudge. Iâd venture to guess that Fluffernutters (and that holiday fudge) were Definitely a part of many a New England childhoodâ tho back then, Fluff existed in only one formâ no raspberry or caramel flavors! And please note: âmarshmallow cremeâ Available in other parts of the country is definitely NOT Fluffâ thereâs only one original! :-)
I have never been a fan of Fluffernutters. Fluff was junkfood to my parents, and they would not buy it. Mom's homemade jams and jellies (crabapple, currant, strawberry, raspberry) were so good, I did not mind. However, I devoured them at the neighbors. Forbidden fruit!
Unfortunately, this seems to be something either discontinued in the States or manufactured only for the European market. However, in my quest for caramel, I found strawberry on the Durkee site. I figured it's worth trying, so I ordered a coupla jars at a decent price on Amazon.
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