#183 Marshrooms

The Holidays are upon us and with them the inevitable parade of dishes that only seem to appear, like magic, this time of year. Think about it. Do you really eat “stuffing” any other time of year? Without fail? Oh sure, sometime around spring you might stuff a Cornish game hen, but really, any regular time? No. Ah, Cornish game hens, the fun-size turkey. They’re really just the veal of the chicken world you know.
Or how about that Jello marshmallow berry thing everyone seems to trot out for the holiday table. Festive to be sure, and piquant and delicious. Seems like it would be perfectly appropriate for a Fourth of July picnic. Or how about candied yams or sweet potatoes? Don’t see those anywhere from January to October. The more I reflect on it, the more I see a bit of a pattern. Cause this is the time of year I also make million-dollar fudge. And what is a prime ingredient in every batch of fudge I make? About thirty full-size marshmallows. Ah hah! Now I see it. The reason we only have these dishes this time of year is because this is the time marshmallows are in season.
Try as they will, the powers that be in the food marketing world can’t get us to really use marshmallows until November and December. I know, I know, Rice Krispie treats are a year round delicacy. So chewy the only snap, crackle, and pop I hear is my jaw. So, too, one could say, is stovetop stuffing a year-round offering, but come on, that’s pretty much like lighting a firecracker in February. It’s not a sustainable economic trend. It’s kind of like tax cuts for the rich. Oh, at first it’s nice being able to buy a companion purebred shitzu for little FiFi, but after that it’s just one more wad to sit uselessly in the bank. Give that same 5,000 bucks to a homeless guy, he can afford a whole new cardboard mansion complete with a year’s supply of muscatel.
So anyhow, you don’t see a huge surge in the marshmallow market until the last part of November. Is that when, seriously, in ancient times, peasants ventured into the marsh to harvest mallows, like, perhaps, their look-alike culinary cousins, mushrooms? Because what is a marsh mallow anyhow? And why, oh why, did we think up that name to describe these elastic airy sugar bubbles?
A question, like all great mysteries, for another day. Like where did we get the name fudge? Or, in a what came first, the egg or the Cornish game hen sort of way, why it is that the only way to make pumpkin pie taste like pumpkin pie is to use pumpkin pie spice. To everything a season.
America, ya gotta love it.