In spite of the mass of dark clouds looming to the southwest, my sister Linda, Greg and I gathered around a blazing fire in the backyard, to make the first batch of s’mores using the new fire pit. This was Linda’s idea. Recently during a family gathering around the fire, she lamented that I didn’t have the ingredients to make s’mores.
Tonight, she brought the marshmallows, chocolate candy bars and graham crackers. I supplied the fire…and the drinks. She had a peach margarita while Greg and I sipped on cold Angry Orchard Ciders. The clouds lumbered on without shedding a drop of rain. The stars came out overhead. And the crackle of the fire enchanted us. We were ready to make s’mores.
I looked up the origin of this classic campfire treat, popular in the US and Canada. According to Wikipedia, s’mores is a contraction of the phrase “some more”. The first recorded version of the recipe was found in the publication Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, in 1927, and remained in girl scout publications labeled as Some Mores until 1973. Merriam-Webster marks 1974 as the first use of the word s’mores.
We prepared our chocolate pieces and graham crackers and then, using long forks, toasted marshmallows. There is an art to marshmallow toasting. Hold them too close to the fire and they blaze up, charring on the outside but remaining cool inside. Patience is required to slowly brown the outside, allowing the inside to become warm and gooey. Once the marshmallows were evenly browned and starting to sag a bit on the fork, they were ready to slide off onto a square of chocolate, which in turn rested on a larger square of graham cracker. Topped with another piece of chocolate and another square of cracker and they were ready to eat.
The treats tasted great. Except Linda ate her first one and realized she forgot the chocolate! We decided it wasn’t really a s’more, but a marshmallow treat. She, of course, had to make another. Like me, she has been limiting her sugar intake, so while the s’mores were very tasty, they were also very sweet. One was all I wanted.
It was fun to sit around the fire pit, laughing, talking, munching on s’mores and watching the fire. I could sit and stare into those flames for hours, fascinated by the twisting, leaping tongues of fire. I’m glad Linda thought of this first, and the fire pit has now had its s’mores initiation. Coming up in the near future….a hot dog roast! It’s going to be a fun summer.
