50 Ways to Use Marshmallows
I recently took a three-day road trip from Kansas City to Boston. When I take long drives like this I try to stop at interesting places along the way, though my desire to stop is balanced by my need to get where I'm going. In the past I have seen amazing outsider art, giant muffler men and had some wonderful (and terrible) local cuisine.
This time, I stopped at Marlene's Restaurant and Crane's Country Store in Williamsburg, MO. It's a tiny town with a closed museum and a historical road. The restaurant is housed in the same building as a sweet little museum and an antique shop. The antique shop is more of a thrift store, but there were hidden treasures, among them this:
As you know, I love cookbooks, especially old quirky ones. How could I resist?
At first glance it's a typical 1940's era cooking pamphlet, full of recipes and advice for the modern housewife.
On a closer perusal I found this:
It’s an attractive dish…
I've not yet made any of these recipes. I don't know that I will since, honestly, I don't really like marshmallows in spite of their high food value (I think that means calories. A sign of a different time, when we wanted more calories). Even if I am being urged to use them every day.
(On a more reflective note, these kinds of artifacts give us a glimpse into our culinary past. This was a time when frugal wasn't trendy, it was just the way you lived. You made very ingredient go as far as it could. There were fewer preservatives, so you needed 50 ways to use those marshmallows before they turned into sugar bricks or worse, molded.
I love these time capsules. And I wonder what our time capsules will be...)
(c) 2013 Laura S. Packer
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