Marshmallow Fluff

Marshmallow Fluff is a spreadable marshmallow cream developed in the Boston area around 1915 and produced since the 1920s at Durkee-Mower Incorporated in Lynn, Massachusetts. Marshmallow confections were first made by the French, who in the nineteenth century added whipped egg whites and sugar to the sticky sap from roots of the marshmallow plant (Althaea officinalis). The gooey result was called paté de guimauve. Before that, the sap, harvested from the roots of the plant, was used in northern Europe as a type of gum. During the eleventh century and through the Middle Ages, the mallow sap was also dispensed as a cure for colds.