Mass. Company Just Wants to Make Fluff
Much of Don Durkee's 80-year life has been Fluff. His father first began peddling Marshmallow Fluff - a gooey, spreadable, sticky delight - door-to-door in 1920 and later founded a family business to make it. Ever since, New England schoolchildren have grown up on Fluffernutter sandwiches - peanut butter and a layer of marshmallow on bread. Now, in its home state of Massachusetts, Fluff has come under fire.
A state senator proposed limiting its availability in school lunchrooms to once a week, horrified at the prospect of it being a daily staple of kids' diets. Another lawmaker jumped to Fluff's defense, nominating the Fluffernutter as the official state sandwich.
Durkee, who now leads his family's company and churns out Fluff by the ton inside the Durkee-Mower Inc. headquarters in Lynn, isn't one for the spotlight. He's content to make Fluff and nothing else - in fact, this year, the company is on the brink of selling 7 million pounds for the first time in its history.
Ever since the controversy broke out, he's shunned calls from reporters.
"Like most people, I think it is a little frivolous to bring it to the attention of our governing bodies," Durkee said during a recent interview with The Associated Press as he sat in his office and fidgeted with his reading glasses. "I think obesity is a problem, but I don't think it can be legislated."
The kerfuffle has stirred passions in generations of New Englanders who fondly associate Fluff with their childhood, while others question its place in an increasingly obese world.
Fluff's allure isn't up for debate. Even state Sen. Jarrett Barrios, the lawmaker who proposed limiting Fluffernutter sandwiches in schools, says he has it at home.
"He loves Fluff as much as the next legislator," said Barrios aide Colin Durrant.
State Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein announced her own legislation designating the Fluffernutter as the official state sandwich. Barrios insisted he isn't anti-Fluff and said he plans to co-sponsor Reinstein's bill, but still supports schools rationing Fluff in school lunches.
"I'm going to fight to the death for Fluff," Reinstein said.
Fluff was invented in the Somerville kitchen of Archibald Query, who sold it door-to-door just before World War I.
In 1920, two Infantry veterans of the war - H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower - bought the recipe from Query for $500. With a barrel of sugar and a secondhand Ford, the pair began driving around looking for customers. Back then, a gallon of the stuff sold for about $1; these days, a 16-oz. jar goes for a little more than $2.
Fluff has always been just four ingredients: corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white and vanilla. The corn syrup and sugar are cooked and poured into 13 mixing bowls that stand 6 feet tall. One person measures the egg whites and vanilla for every batch by hand.
"I can't tell you how long we whip it for," Durkee said without smiling. "That's about the only part of the trade secret. You could almost invent it by accident."
While most other companies start with one product and then branch out, Durkee-Mower just makes Fluff. About as diverse as it has gotten is making different flavors, such as raspberry and strawberry.
"While it looks like it's old-fashioned, they are not so dumb," said Roberta Clarke, a marketing professor at Boston University. "There is no other word for Fluff. They own the category."
The privately held company says it can be used in fruit salads, cheesecakes, lemon meringue pies, fruit flavored shakes and dessert bars. Dollops of Fluff can go in hot chocolate or be used as the base for cake frosting. The Yummy Book, a Fluff cookbook, includes recipes for Sweet Potato Souffle, Never Fail Fudge and Popcorn Fluff Puffs.
"It makes great Whoopie Pies," Durkee added.
Durkee-Mower does have some competition in the spreadable marshmallow market, including Kraft Food Inc., which makes Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme. Kraft would not disclose sales figures or poundage.
More than 50 percent of the Fluff sold is in New England and upstate New York, said Durkee, who wouldn't disclose exact figures. However, as Northeasterners move west and south - and supermarket chains merge - Fluff has followed.
"Fluff has gone through so many generations - parents, children - so many people grew up on it," Durkee said. "It's convenient. And kids like it."
"I look forward to going to work every day. It really tickles me to think about all those little kids with their lunch boxes and Fluffernutters, just like when I was little, so long ago".
- Walter Noblinski, 82, who has worked as a whipper for Durkee-Mower Inc. since 1941.
I don't know about you, but I was shocked and dismayed to learn that the great state of Massachusetts did not already have an official sandwich. My God, what have these legislators and the Governor been doing all these years? I mean it's been a state for what, about 220 years? They have found the time to designate a state bird, the black-capped chickadee, and a state game bird, the wild turkey, and a state flower, the mayflower. If you follow this link, you will find all of the other loopy things they've designated including the official state donut (Boston Crème). So, is there something going on here - perhaps a sinister anti-sandwich bias inserting itself into the very guts of government?
Before I start on the surprisingly complex subject of Marshmallow Fluff, I need to do some due diligence. My father was a dentist and a very severe man. I grew up in the fifties when sugar had just been identified as the primary cause of dental caries. Therefore, in our house, sugar was the enemy and forbidden. This created a rather interesting conflict with our Armenian culture which required a relentless succession of pastries to mark every holiday and season of the year. The resolution of this paradox was the creation of parallel universes where candy and sweet things were bad but traditional Armenian food was good. "Besides, "" my mother would say, speaking of the pastry we ate all the time, "we don't have it very often".
So, Fluff was evil and consumed only by the lower classes. Though I may have yearned for a Fluffernutter like the other kids, my lunch box usually featured meatloaf sandwiches on my mother's homemade bread, and an apple or perhaps apricot fruit leather, also homemade.
This article was inspired by a curious set of circumstances surrounding the creation of Rooster Brother's newest hot drink, Cocoa Jo. It's a terrific hot chocolate, sometimes pumped up, at the customer's discretion, with half and half and our French Roast. Early on, a staffer who's pretty sophisticated said, "Well, you'll have to have a jar of Fluff nearby." I was appalled and dismissed it as aberrant or perhaps passive aggressive behavior.
It was only after several customers said the same thing that I realized that it was time to call in the folks at Weird Mail to investigate this phenomenon further.
During my initial research I found the AP article and realized that what we had here was a classic confrontation between the food Nazis (we only eat what's good for us, anything that tastes really good is by definition bad) and the hedonists (if it feels good, do it and if it feels really good, do a lot of it).
I have often been amazed at the creativity that we apply to making foods that are basically pure sugar. Fluff, rock candy, cotton candy (which was originally named Fairy Floss, but that's another story) all come to mind. From an evolutionary point of view it makes sense. Back in the bad old days when you had to put out two calories for every one you hunted or gathered, sweet stuff was concentrated fuel that kept the motor running.
Children, being the primitive creatures they are, have figured this out and usually prefer sweets to everything else. Plus, sweet flavors are usually simple and easy for the palate to comprehend. It's interesting that we often refer to childhood memories as 'sweet'.
So, is the Fluffernutter the quintessential power food, or the ultimate junk food? For the answer we turn to Dr. Horst Bender, head of the Berliner Gustologik Clinic at the University of Heidelberg, acclaimed nutritionist and Weird Mail's consultant on food values.
"A Fluffernutter is basically the same nutritionally as a bowl of Fruit Loops, both are excellent sources of energy but I think the Fluffernutter tastes better."
There you have it. Let's give Walter Noblinski the last word,
"People are always asking me if I get bored doing the same thing for all these years. Well, I think when you're doing something that makes other people happy, it's never boring."
The Fact-checker Checks In
I would like to introduce you to the new chief Fact-checker for Weird Mail, Dr. Theodora Edison-Peacock. As you know, after a great deal of bitching and moaning about the blurring of fiction and reality, we decided to establish an independent Fact-checker to assure you that what you are reading is, in fact true or maybe not. Dr. Edison-Peacock has graciously accepted this position. She is fiercely independent and, as you will see by her first report below, dogged in her pursuit of the truth. I have tried to corrupt her on several occasions, in keeping with the Weird Mail motto, "Enhancing reality whenever necessary", but to no avail.
Dear Editor, Today was a bit of a grey day here in the Greater Boston Area, but I couldn't let that deter me from my mission. This Durkee-Mower business sounded like more of your usual chicanery, and being geographically close by to the alleged location it was up to me to check it out.
My pre-mission evidence gathering phase turned up the official "Fluff" website, but that could have been easily created by one of your minions bent on fooling us. Curiously, there was no address listed for the "Fluff Factory", only a P.O. Box. Employees reached at the number listed on the website informed my office that no factory tours were available. It was obvious I had to go to the source.
Relying on local advice I wound my way north, fueled by my purpose and a little caffeine, towards Lynn-- "Lynn, Lynn the city of sin" as we know it around these parts. After residential streets that twisted and turned past cemeteries and gas stations, rising from the mist I saw it: the purported home of Fluff. From the outside one would never guess that this modest location produces the stuff childhood cafeteria dreams are made of, but there it was, looking a little shabby and forlorn-- Durkee-Mower Inc.
The building was clearly closed-- for the weekend? forever?-- and abutted a large empty lot that looked recently cleared. Perhaps a new addition is in the works. If they're going to solve this conundrum of creating Chocolate Fluff, as their website suggests, perhaps they need a new laboratory!
Along the way, I discovered that although Lynn is perhaps not the cheeriest of New England towns, it hosts many interesting and wonderfully-named establishments and even a couple of pretty views. Please see the attached files for the visual evidence I was able to gather on this fact-finding mission. All in all, I can neither confirm nor deny all the information contained in the latest edition of Weird Mail. I can, however, say that Durkee-Mower is located in Lynn, Massachusetts, and for some reason I am craving a Fluffernutter.
Your Fond Reader,
Dr. Theodora Edison-Peacock