Home › At the Fountain › Marshmallow Syrup
Marshmallow Syrup
One pound of white sugar, whites of 3 eggs, 6 ounces of gum arabic. Dissolve first the gum with 1 pint of water, strain through a fine sieve, cook the sugar with 1 pint of water to a thin syrup, let cool, beat the whites of eggs to a stiff froth; add the syrup by degrees, beating all the while, add the dis-sovled gum, beat until cold, put in a large glass jar, cover air-tight, it is then ready for use. It is advisable to make only a small quantity in order to have it always fresh, because this syrup will sour in a few days. No soda water dealer can prepare all his fruit, concentrated syrups, or crushed fruits and make them as good or as cheaply as he can procure them from reputable manufacturers.
This is a soda-fountain bottling formula from the era before refrigeration was standard behind the counter, and its central technique — folding raw egg white into a cooled syrup and then holding the result in a jar — is the reason it cannot be made today. The notes below explain the failure points and translate the vocabulary.
- The egg white is never cookedThe sugar syrup is explicitly cooled before it meets the beaten whites, so nothing in the process brings the egg above a pasteurising temperature. A hot syrup poured in a thin stream can partially cook a meringue; a cooled one cannot. Any Salmonella present in the shell eggs survives intact into the finished jar.
- Storage makes it worse, not betterThe syrup is then sealed and kept at room temperature until used up. Sugar concentration here is nowhere near the level that would make the mixture microbiologically stable, and the aerated egg foam gives spoilage organisms both moisture and protein. The author's own warning that it "will sour in a few days" is a description of active microbial growth.
- Gum arabic is not a preservativeSix ounces of gum arabic dissolved in a pint of water is a thickener and foam stabiliser only. It does nothing to inhibit bacteria. If you want marshmallow flavour in a drink, use a current commercial syrup or a formula built on cooked or pasteurised egg white.
- "Thin syrup"A pound of sugar to a pint of water cooked briefly orowell short of soft ball. Fountain manuals of the period generally described syrups by density grade — "thin," "medium," "heavy" — rather than by temperature.
- Gum arabic todaySold as acacia gum, in powder or in tears, through baking and confectionery suppliers. Six ounces by weight to a pint of water gives a thick mucilage; many modern uses call for less.
- The closing sentence is trade advice, not cookeryThe remark that no dealer can make fruit and concentrated syrups as cheaply or as well as he can buy them is the book speaking to the soda man about his supply chain. It sits oddly under a recipe.
Marshmallow syrup takes its name from the marsh mallow, Althaea officinalis, whose root yields a mucilage that confectioners once whipped with sugar and egg white to make the original marshmallow paste. By the time American soda fountains were at their height, the root had largely been dropped in favour of gum arabic or gelatine, which were cheaper, more consistent and easier to keep — so a "marshmallow" syrup like this one contains no mallow at all, only the texture the plant used to supply. Fountain manuals of this kind were written for the druggist-operator who mixed his own dispensing syrups at the back of the shop, and they sit at the moment when that practice was giving way to bought concentrates; the recipe's own parting shot, that a dealer should buy his fruit syrups rather than make them, is the sound of the trade changing hands from the counter to the manufacturer.