National S’mores Day on August 10th recognizes the most popular campfire treat! Millions of people of all ages love this gooey, toasted treat.
- The origin of this tasty snack is credited to the entrepreneur Alec Barnum.
- However, the first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the 1927 publication of Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts. Even though the Girl Scouts were not the first ones to make s’mores, Girl Scout groups describe them in their reports as early as 1925.
- Earlier recipes used the name “Some Mores.” It is unclear when “S’mores” became the more common name.
- The first S’more recipe can be found in a book of recipes published by the Campfire Marshmallows company in the early 1920s,
- Other inspirational possibilities include the Mallomar—a graham cracker cookie topped with a blob of marshmallow and coated with chocolate, manufactured by Nabisco and first sold in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1913
- Or the MoonPie—a pair of graham cracker cookies with a marshmallow filling, dipped in chocolate – that first went on the market in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1917.
- The Hershey Company makes more than 373 million HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate bars a year. That’s enough to make 746 million S’mores!
- HONEY MAID Graham Crackers were introduced in 1925 and are the leading brand of Graham Crackers in the U.S.
- Every HONEY MAID Graham Cracker is made with the goodness of 5 grams of whole grain per serving and real honey.
- Americans buy around 90 million pounds of marshmallows every year.
- Additionally, during the summer it is estimated that 50 percent of marshmallows sold are used for s’mores.
- The Merriam-Webster dictionary suggests the first known use of the word was in 1974.
- Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham invented the graham cracker in 1829 in Bound Brook, New Jersey.
- 31% of Americans make s’mores on a grill.
- 87% of Americans have tried a s’more.
- 31% of Americans have only had a s’more cooked over campfire, and 41% of people in metro cities haven’t even tasted a s’more before!
- People in Grand Rapids, Michigan, consume the most S’mores.
- Half of a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar, about 6 pips, are used to make a traditional s’mores
- An average of 2.1 million s’mores are consumed each day of summer
- 100,000 pounds of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars are consumed in s’mores on an average summer day.
- According to Tim Richardson’s Sweets: A History of Candy, the original marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis) was a swamp plant somewhat resembling a hollyhock, native to Europe and West Asia. Its roots produce a sticky white sap used medicinally for centuries as a sore-throat cure.
- In the Middle Ages, chunks of the marsh mallow root were candied to make “suckets,” the medieval version of cough drops.
- By the 1890s, according to period newspaper reports, marshmallow roasts were the latest in summer fads. “The simplicity of this form of amusement is particularly charming,” reads a description of 1892. “One buys two or three pounds of marshmallows, invites half a dozen friends, and that is all the preparation required.”
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