Just a bunch of Fluff

September 9, 2012 8:03 AM

Archibald Query 's creation, Marshmallow Fluff, followed a winding path to household name. Most famous as a component of the Fluffernutter sandwich, this icon of New England cuisine appears in hundreds of other recipes, including whoopie pies and Mamie Eisenhower's Never Fail Fudge. You can even try making it yourself. . Other homages include the pop-style "Fluffart" of Susan Olsen, perhaps better known to us as the Brady Bunch's Cindy; some video tributes, and the What the Fluff? Festival in Somerville, MA (previously),
posted by Miko (36 comments total)

It's also the basis for cheap but surprisingly effective social commentary Sci-Fi/horror movies
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 AM on September 9, 2012

Fluffernutters are like crack to me. I don't buy fluff because when I do I just continuously eat fluffernutters for every meal and snack until it's gone.
posted by XMLicious at 8:32 AM on September 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have the dubious distinction of having actually failed while making the Fluff Never Fail Fudge recipe. (things ended up crystalizing all wrong and it got crunchy)

Maybe this year, I will finally make it over the hill down to Union Square and actually go to WTF.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:35 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

A good friend of mine holds the distinction of having grown up in Query's house in Marblehead, MA.
posted by briank at 8:39 AM on September 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've never had a Fluffernutter, but I suspect it is very similar to one of my favorites, peanut butter and honey on cheap white bread.
posted by HuronBob at 8:45 AM on September 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

I would enjoy this being Massachusetts' official sandwich.... I had a piece of cake on my birthday, not home made, from a local restaurant, that had some sort of Fluff-based buttercream type frosting. It was amazing.
posted by jessamyn at 8:56 AM on September 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

The best ever thing at the What The Fluff? festival was last year when I had a Pretty Things stout with malted fluff in it. It was a time-bomb of foam, but so much fun and very good. I hope they have it again this year!
posted by maryr at 9:11 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

That sounds delicious. If fortune smiles I might try to make that festival. Meetup maybe?
posted by Miko at 9:13 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Moon pie.

There is an old joke which was really funny in around 1985 but has since lost its humor about a priest neophyte listening to confessions and handing out penances and he has to go back to the senior priest to find out details--one rosary for saying a curse word, ten hail marys for running a red light &c. and the punchline is what do you give for a blowjob and the senior guy says a coke and a moonpie.
posted by bukvich at 9:18 AM on September 9, 2012

We know rule 34 has pervaded all the universe when the two major meanings of "fluff" make it into "Fluff" marketing speak.
posted by clvrmnky at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2012

I would enjoy this being Massachusetts' official sandwich...

There have been attempts:

Among the people who defended the Fluffernutter at the time was Massachusetts State Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein, whose district in Revere was close to Lynn, where Marshmallow Fluff is made. She claimed she planned to "fight to the death for Fluff" and supported legislation that would make the Fluffernutter the official state sandwich. The measure failed, and Reinstein tried again unsuccessfully in 2009. Supporters of the bill cited the sandwich's close association with childhood and Massachusetts.

posted by ericb at 9:33 AM on September 9, 2012

It's only 9:30 here on the US west coast and I have already seen the strangest thing I will see all day.
posted by trunk muffins at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Having grown up outside of NE and then moved here: Fluff is gross.

Marshmallows are already a little icky to me since I realized they are a meat product. (Not that meat in general is gross, but sticky sweet candy-like products made from meat? Ew.) And you keep it in a sticky jar in the cupboard. Not the fridge. The warm cupboard.

So, so gross.
posted by DU at 9:52 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The problem with this stuff is that I buy it and then it literally just vanishes from the jar, pretty much overnight. Poof. Into thin air. I'm convinced of this. I think the universe's dark matter may in fact be made out of my missing fluff.
posted by gracedissolved at 9:55 AM on September 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

No that totally happens. I had a jar of strawberry Fluff that was a gift and turned out to be sort of terrible and I stuffed it in the back of a cabinet and forgot about it. I am sure it was full because I did not have much after the initial taste. A year or so later I opened it up and there was just a sticky pink sludge at the very bottom of the jar and ... a lot of empty space.

Marshmallows are already a little icky to me since I realized they are a meat product.

Fluff is vegetarian--corn syrup, vanillin, egg white, sugar--and people put in a lot of hard work to find something marshmallowish that is vegan. I mean hey you like what you like, I prefer the plastic tubs of off-brand creme stuff because they seem to be less sticky, but the gelatin problem with marshamllows (and Jell-o) isn't really in evidence with Fluff.
posted by jessamyn at 10:10 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I grew up in W. Massachusetts, and we used to eat Fluffernutters all the time. After a while though, us kids lost our taste for how sweet it was, and that plastic container of Fluff sat in the pantry for years. In the end, you could still dip a knife in, and pull out a gooey slather of Fluff, but I didn't dare eat it.

Until this moment, I had no idea that it was a Massachusetts thing.
posted by hanoixan at 10:13 AM on September 9, 2012

I remember first having fluffiernutter sandwiches at summer camp for lunch. They will forever remind me of trails in the woods, archery, "Kickapoo" punch, and sunshine.
posted by zippy at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

God, I just saw this stuff yesterday in a grocery store in Toronto. I hadn't seen it since I was a little kid. I remember TV ads for it in the late 60's, along with a product that was peanut butter and jam in the same jar in a "twist" or spiral arrangement. Didn't last on the market.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 10:27 AM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had no idea it was a NE thing until I went away to college in VT and then lived in Boston. It was a huge treat in my big family growing up in the southern Midwest and I assumed, like all sweet , non- healthy, strange combo edibles, it was hill people food.

a product that was peanut butter and jam in the same jar in a "twist" or spiral arrangement. Didn't last on the market.
You can still buy the peanut butter and jelly combo if you shop in the right fine food shops, er, I mean dollar stores....
posted by Isadorady at 10:38 AM on September 9, 2012

Wait, people in other parts of the USA don't know the glory of fluffernutter sandwiches? I'm so proud of my origins now.
posted by raccoon409 at 11:07 AM on September 9, 2012

Growing up in Connecticut we were only allowed to have Fluffernutters on a rare Saturday. That's why I and my siblings would often go over to our friends' houses for lunch during summer weekdays. Oh, and they were allowed to eat Wonder Bread!
posted by ericb at 11:22 AM on September 9, 2012

... a product that was peanut butter and jam in the same jar in a "twist" or spiral arrangement. Didn't last on the market.

Oh, no...it's still available. In two flavor combos: with Smucker's Concord Grape or Strawberry Jelly.

Smucker's Goober PB & J (find a store nearby, or buy online)
posted by ericb at 11:26 AM on September 9, 2012

Now, Candy Corn Oreos (available starting tomorrow at Target stores) sounds unappealing to me.
posted by ericb at 11:31 AM on September 9, 2012

At the Demoula's Market Basket in Waltham, they had a bakery, with fresh-baked italian loaf of surprising quality that they'd slice for you on the spot, in whatever thickness you wanted (hard to find a place with that kind of bread slicer.) They also had a peanut grinder, and would fresh-grind you some peanut butter, as smooth or rough as you preferred, and it would be hot in your hand when the clerk handed it over.

I then added fluff to this, because I was insane. Insane and happy.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:04 PM on September 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

We had fluffernutter sandwiches all the way down in New Jersey.
posted by Karmakaze at 3:24 PM on September 9, 2012

Market Basket still has all that!
posted by Miko at 4:32 PM on September 9, 2012

I currently have 3 jars of fluff in the cupboard. :)

It's great for making the lazy version of S'mores:
Take a graham cracker, spread it with fluff, top with chocolate (chips or bars).
Broil in oven until everything is melty & the fluff starts to brown.
posted by belladonna at 6:54 PM on September 9, 2012

This thread inspired me to have a fluffernutter for lunch. Damn you all.

Maybe this year, I will finally make it over the hill down to Union Square and actually go to WTF. Or not, as I realized that I'm already scheduled to be out of town that weekend. harrumf.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:27 PM on September 9, 2012

Market Basket is, of course, the BEST. (Which you would expect of Johnnie's FOODMASTER, but it's pretty awful. Carpeted grocery store, bad sign. But really, I have never heard a better name for a grocery, including the delightfully christened Piggly Wiggly).
posted by maryr at 8:57 PM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, I WILL be buying those candy corn Oreos if I see them. I will take that bullet for you, Metafilter. (I'm kinda obsessed with weird Oreos right now.)
posted by maryr at 8:59 PM on September 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had a friend who used to live right down the street from the Durkee-Mower factory where they purportedly made the Fluff. I don't remember how the area smelled — definitely not strong like the smell of roasting coffee that pervades downtown Malden in the middle of the night — then again, East Lynn has a smell of its own, especially at low tide.

YAY FLUFF! I would definitely be interested in a meetup at the Fluffstival.

PS: in a small-scale taste test, I found that raspberry fluff doesn't taste heavenly, or even that much like raspberries!
posted by not_on_display at 9:05 AM on September 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Johnnie's FOODMASTER ...

In related news: Whole Foods Has Its Eye On Johnnie’s Foodmaster -- "Upscale grocer in talks to acquire 6 of 10 local markets"
posted by ericb at 12:11 PM on September 10, 2012

Which you would expect of Johnnie's FOODMASTER, but it's pretty awful. Carpeted grocery store, bad sign. But really, I have never heard a better name for a grocery

I am surprised that Johnnie's Foodmaster is still around. I used to have to shop the Beacon St one in Somerville and we always called it FoodBitch, because the clerks there were the worst I have encountered anyplace I lived.
posted by Isadorady at 12:47 PM on September 10, 2012

It sounds like you didn't respect your FoodMaster.
posted by Miko at 1:31 PM on September 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Are you the FoodMaster? /zuul
posted by The Whelk at 1:39 PM on September 10, 2012

One of my first memories of Massachusetts was my father driving around somewhere between Melrose and Route 1, very lost, and driving past both a FOODMASTER and a S&M Liquors. A quick Google search tells me we were in Wakefield, which is definitely not where we were trying to go at the time.
posted by maryr at 2:33 PM on September 10, 2012 [1 favorite]