Why Were Marshmallows Invented?

The once or twice a year that I go camping, I’ll inevitably decide to make s’mores. That’s when it’ll hit me that, oh yeah, marshmallows exist! But why the heck are these things even around? They have such a unique flavor and texture. Why were marshmallows invented? When were marshmallows invented? Who invented marshmallows? How were marshmallows invented? Let’s get squishy and find out. 

Why were marshmallows invented?

Marshmallows did not start out as candy. Somewhat surprisingly, marshmallows started out as a medicine much like a few of my other favorite sweet treats—Coca-Cola and Dimetapp. The first marshmallows were not the squishy sweet treats we know today. The first marshmallows came from a plant called Althaea officinalis. Althaea officinalis is a part of the mallow plant species. It grows mostly in marshes in Europe and western Asia. People started using this root of this plant to treat a variety of ailments all the way back in the 9th century BC.

Who invented marshmallows?

Who invented the marshmallow can be a tricky question. It took centuries for the marshmallow to become what we know today. The invention of the marshmallow can be credited to a combination of nature, the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, and the French. Nature invented the plant. The Greeks used it as a medicine. The Egyptians added the sweet element. And the French turned it into a straight up candy.

How was the marshmallow invented?

So, way back in 8th century B.C., Greeks used the marshmallow plant to treat everything from sore throats to lagging libidos. The Egyptians took this marshmallow plant and boiled its roots, combining the sap with honey and nuts to make a sweet offering to the gods. 

For centuries the marshmallow plant was basically a food source of last resort since it took a lot of prep and was kind of bitter. In the 19th century, French candy-makers invented a new treat they called pâté de guimauve. This was a soft and spongy little candy made from marshmallow plant root, sugar, water, and egg whites. Pâté de guimauve was sold as a throat lozenge and became a hit. People loved it not just for the supposed medical properties, but it was also sweet and spongy. 

The problem was the long prep time. These things took two days to make with all the drying and preparing of the root. So, in a giant leap for modern marshmallow-kind, they began to substitute gelatin for the marshmallow plant root. The recipe was formalized to its modern whipped sugar, water, gelatin, air, and sometimes cornstarch for shaping. 

Marshmallows came to the U.S. and became popular with the Girl Scouts Of America who put a s’mores recipe in their 1927 handbook. By the 1950s, marshmallow making was completely streamlined with an extrusion process pushing the concoction through metal tubes, making long ropes of marshmallows that could be uniformly cut and packaged. And it all started with a plant.