In 2006, the Massachusetts state legislature spent a full week debating the question: Should the fluffernutter become the official state sandwich? On one side, nutritional worrywarts griped that the combination of Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter on white bread contributed to the scourge of childhood obesity; against them stood history-minded partisans for whom the fluffernutter sandwich was a proud culinary legacy. One state legislator declared, “I’m going to fight to the death for Fluff.”
Outside New England, few people know what the sandwich is; many aren’t even familiar with Marshmallow Fluff! The spreadable airy white confection first appeared early in the twentieth century, as Marshmallow Crème (invented in 1917 in Somerville, Massachusetts, by Archibald Query) and as Snowflake Marshmallow Crème (invented in 1913 by Amory and Emma Curtis of Melrose, Massachusetts). During World War I, when patriotic citizens sought to get their protein from sources other than beef and to find alternatives to wheat flour, Ms. Curtis published a recipe for the Liberty Sandwich—Snowflake Marshmallow Crème and peanut butter on war bread (made with oats or barley). It was not until 1960 that the combo was named fluffernutter, thanks to a creative ad agency seeking to sell more Marshmallow Fluff. (Rice Krispie Treats, originally made by combining the cereal with Fluff, were invented in 1966.)
Fluffernutter never did become Massachusetts’s official sandwich, but October 8 has been proclaimed National Fluffernutter Day.