Path to s’more perfection up for debate
To roast a marshmallow, you stuff the pointed stick through the center, plunge it into the campfire and hold it there until it catches fire. And then you hold the stick aloft until the marshmallow is fully engulfed and scorched to black.
Everybody knows this.
Or so I thought until the recent evening spent around my friends’ patio fire pit. Hot dogs and s’mores were on the menu. I roasted the weenie according to their and my expectations: stick jammed vertically through the hotdog to keep it from falling in.
When it came to dessert, I was met with a different opinion about the correct way to cook the marshmallow for the s’more. My method of plunge and incinerate is, apparently, violent, unsightly and inedible. Marshmallows are to be gently heated – coddled and tended to like baby chicks.
I’d already gulped down two of my charred marshmallows before my friend had only begun poaching hers. As I watched her slowly spin the stick, I wondered if my preference for a scorched marshmallow is rooted in my general impatience — and how I grew up in a family that ate meals quickly. In less than 45 minutes the nightly meal was finished, the dishes cleared and washed and the kitchen closed for the night.
“This is the way to do it,” my friend said. She held aloft a stick holding a marshmallow that was heated at the top to a bubbled caramel color. The bottom remained white, but soft and melty.
“That looks like some famous person,” I said, scratching my head with my sticky hand. Since then, I have thought about that curly-top marshmallow and have come to a conclusion.
Justin Timberlake. A gently roasted marshmallow resembles the pop singer Justin Timberlake.
As the evening progressed, my friend and I had some other smaller disagreements about the right way to make a s’more. While she preferred that the chocolate square be gently warmed and melted by the hot marshmallow before eating it, I prefer mine al dente. I need the crunch of the cracker, then the squish of the marshmallow and then the firm bite of the chocolate. Done correctly, you end up with some marshmallow goo on your hands but not melted chocolate.
Maybe I learned this at sleep-away Girl Scout Camp. When I was 11, I spent a week at Camp Henry Kaufmann in Ligonier. While the week was not necessarily a great experience (we didn’t hike or go fishing as I’d expected would be an obvious activity), we did have a campfire on our last night there. We each were allotted a single s’more, again a disappointment, but that one treat was delicious.
At my friends’ campfire, I felt the need to defend my marshmallow method. While the Timberlake version might have been pretty, it was not properly cooked. A marshmallow must be obliterated.
I’ve never liked the texture of an uncooked marshmallow; there’s something off-putting about the air escaping against my teeth when I bite it. (This is the reason I will eat only those Easter peeps that have gone stale.)
However, a marshmallow that’s properly set ablaze offers all the soft sweetness but also the bitter, crumbly outer shell.
So: put it on a stick. Plunge it into the flames. Wait a few seconds until the whole thing is ablaze. Blow out the fire and then count to 20. Carefully pull the charred skin off and pop it into your mouth.
Then, and only then, slide the melted remainder onto the graham cracker, add the square of chocolate, then the lid. And then enjoy the perfect bite.
Everybody knows this.