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Marshmallows: evil, gross, and delicious.
I've always wanted to make homemade marshmallows. I made my first-ever batch over the weekend. It turned out perfectly and it was pretty easy. But I learned a couple of things along the way.
It's the gelatin. Yes, I know, I have always known that gelatin is made from cow parts. Maybe even horse parts, I dunno. It's made from the rendered hide, bones, and/or connective tissue of mammals. I have always been able to gloss over this in my mind (even though I don't eat red meat -- I'm not that picky about it, obviously). Gelatin is everywhere in marshmallows, candy, ice cream, and many other commercially produced foods. Before this project I had never cooked with it.
When I poured the boiling-hot sugar syrup into the dissolved gelatin, I was not prepared for the odor. It smelled like a barn. It did not smell like meat or anything edible, it smelled like animal. It was a pretty disgusting smell. If I had actually just walked into a barn, it would have been no big deal, I expect barnyard smells in a barn. I do not expect barnyard smells to waft out of my stand mixer, which is filled with rapidly expanding sweet white fluff.
I thought that maybe I got a bad box of gelatin but really, I'm pretty sure that's just the way it is. I could try to use another brand of gelatin. There are some made only from fish (although I'm not sure if that smell would be any better). Interestingly, kosher gelatin may be made with cow parts even though it is considered pareve (neither meat nor dairy). I think most kosher gelatins are made with fish, although there are exceptions. (One kosher brand that claimed to be vegan was exposed by lab testing to be made from animals. What a shonda!)
Pretty much all marshmallow recipes call for corn syrup as well. I don't buy food made with with corn syrup in general, but I feel like making an occasional treat with Karo is just fine. It only becomes a problem when the stuff makes up 20% of our daily calories.
The marshmallows are delicious. No funny taste at all. They make excellent s'mores. And I really want to try to make some chocolate ones. But maybe I'll look for some fish-based gelatin. And wear a nose plug.
May 29, 2008 5:14 PM
Hah! Animal bits! Funnily enough, they don't list animal bits as an ingredient, because the FDA thinks that they've rendered them down & processed them so much that they're no longer anything to do with animals.
There are such things as vegan marshmallows - you can get marshmallow root from SFHerb.com and can also get agar-agar powder, and tapioca powder ... so you should be able to bypass the animal bits.
Vegan marshmallows are actually on our list of things to buy when we come back (next week), because they're sold in stores in the US, but not in Scotland.
I recently saw a recipe for marshmallows. I was tempted to try it. Now maybe not so much...Ummm, ewwwww!!!! I had never heard about the 'side effects' of cooking with gelatin before. I'm effectively grossed out.
Hope all is well with you.
I had no idea that gelatin was made from that. I don't really eat gelatin anyway.... or at least don't think I do. I will have to check.