Marshmallows & Peeps

In the mid 19th century, marshmallow candy was made using the sap of the Marsh-Mallow plant, a medicinal plant of African origin found in marshes. Gelatin replaced the sap in the modern recipes, which are a mixture of corn syrup or sugar, gum Arabic, gelatin and various flavorings.

In 1948 Alex Doumak, a marshmallow manufacturer developed a new way of producing marshmallows as an “extrusion process” and by fitting the fluffy mixtures through tubes and cutting them into cylindrical shapes as we see them today.

The Rodda Candy Company, a small company based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, invented the first marshmallow chicks we know today as Peeps. In 1953, Bob Born of the Just Born Company bought Rodda Candy and within a year had produced a machine that could mass-produce the marshmallows chicks, which he trademarked as Peeps.

Here’s a short video by ABC on the production of Peeps: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3016585

Peeps have a terrifyingly influential status in American culture—as described in the documentary “The Power of the Peep.” A teaser is available here: http://www.powerofthepeep.com/teaser.html