Had your fill of Peeps? (3/21/05)

Have you had your fill of Marshmallow Peeps® yet? I like chicks the best but only because they have been around the longest. You can bite their heads off and their siblings don’t care. They can’t scream because they don’t have mouths. All they can do is huddle together while they plot to cover everything with colored sugar.

It all started in 1910 when Sam Born came to the United States from Russia. He opened a candy store in New York. He referred to his confections as “just born” to illustrate how fresh they were. It’s a good thing his name wasn’t “Stale” or “Bittner.”

His first factory was in Brooklyn. Later he moved his operation to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where he acquired a candy company that made jellybeans and hand-made marshmallow chicks called Peeps®. The process was eventually mechanized and Peeps® and the demand for them multiplied faster than bunnies in spring.

The soft marshmallow concoction has since morphed into all kinds of shapes suitable for every holiday. The Just Born company now produces more than one billion Peeps® a year and refers to all of its marshmallow products as Peeps®, even the bat-shaped ones.

I saw my first yellow chick this year around Valentine’s Day. They competed with the marshmallow hearts for my attention. Purist that I am, I waited until a couple of weeks before Easter before purchasing a package of five of the doomed creatures. According to the official Marshmallow Peeps® web site most people eat between one and five of the sugary treats at a time.

People do strange things to the little creations. My daughter favors a game called “Chubby Bunny.” You place a chick or a bunny in your mouth and repeat the phrase, “chubby bunny.” The object of the game is to get as many chicks or bunnies in your mouth as possible while still repeating the phrase. Apparently this results in uproarious laugher by the participants. I suppose the game cumulates in a frenzied sugar rush followed by an afternoon nap.

There are several web sites devoted to the creatures. People torture them by freezing or microwaving them. They drop them from high places and even offer them cigarettes. There are pictures of marshmallow bunnies wearing shirts and baseball caps. Several enterprising souls covered a co-worker’s cubicle with stale chicks then posted the picture on the internet. These people have way too much time on their hands.

The official Marshmallow Peeps® web site offers a chance to join the fan club or buy a yellow chick-shaped clock. The fan club might be interesting but how many people could use a bright yellow timepiece? I wonder how many they sell.

Some of the bunnies and chicks are achieving permanence this year by turning into stuffed animals. It reminds me of “The Velveteen Rabbit” story.

There is an actual plant called the marsh mallow. It has pink flowers and is usually between two and four feet tall. At one time the plant was used to produce the typical gooey texture of marshmallows, which is where the name came from. Other ingredients are used these days to achieve the preferred squishiness and the plant can go back to being considered a wildflower. They are in the same family as hollyhocks and hibiscus, Malvaceae and prefer to grow in marshes.

Supposedly they were once used as both medicine and food. Juice was extracted from the plant's roots and combined with egg whites and sugar, then whipped into a foamy meringue that later hardened, creating a medicinal candy used to soothe children's sore throats. I wonder if they were shaped into baby animals? Potions made from marsh mallows are supposed to ease bronchial and gastric problems. Parts of the plant can be made into a poultice or ointment for the treatment of all kinds of skin problems. It almost sounds like the flower is a cure-all for a whole host of ills.

Personally, I’ll leave any stray marsh mallows alone and feast on the colorful chicks and bunnies that adorn the store shelves. I just hope the hollow chocolate rabbits don’t get jealous.

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