Marshmallow Peeps

[Misson]

So the local coffee emporium on the main street corner of town to which I stroll on random mornings during my daily sojourn had this special for Easter (yes, I know, that was a few weeks ago). For some exorbitant rate normally associated with an entire meal at a fast-food restaurant, you could get a flavoured cappuccino with a peep duck or swan or whatever that bird-like blob is called floating in it.

Odd.

"Bethany," I began, using my favorite dyed-shock-of-blue-haired barista's full name due to the gravity of the question, "do peeps melt in coffee?"

"I don't know, I've never tried one. The kids order them at night when I'm not here."

Beth is 26, so I guess she's talking about high school students. Unless sixth-graders are taking to coffee, which, come to think of it, wouldn't surprise me one damned bit.

This rankled. I must know and I didn't want to buy any peeps as I don't understand what makes them desirable.

So, I finally gave in a few lazy Sundays ago and went down to the coffee emporium on the main street corner of town to which I normally stroll on random mornings during my daily sojourn. There was some alien boy barista who I had never met before to whom I presented a "Buy 10 get any coffee free" cards (of which I have a vast collection since I never use them for reasons that are not entirely clear to me or Beth) and demanded,

"I want a peep in my coffee."

"You get a flavor with that. Do you want (insert some sweet-sounding flavor here - I've forgotten which one he recommended).

"Sure. Might as well have the whole experience."

"I'll bring it out to you."

Which he did. It was monstrous large and had a yellow peep wading around in it, the icingy black eyes staring coolly at me over the oddly bent, pointed beak. I glared at it for several minutes...no sign of melting.

I tentatively took a sip - SWEEEEEET! GAH! If I weren't a diabetic already, I would have become one at that instant. Like a religious conversion, baptized in the sickeningly sweet (insert some sweet-sounding flavor here) syrup combined with steamed milk and whatever droppings a marshmallow peep might choose to leave while luxuriating in a bowl of coffee.

So I waited some more. Worked on my laptop, copying notes about pirate surgery.

Still didn't melt.

After about fifteen minutes of this, I could stand it no longer and, despite knowing better, took a bite off the bottom of the peep and set him carefully back into the significantly cooled tub of coffee.

Then it began to melt, but only where the marshmallow guts were revealed. The yellow stuff didn't melt. Ever.

Suspicious.

What is this stuff?

In any investigation, you must start from the beginning. Facts, Hercule, facts! Nothing matters but the facts. Without them the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game. So I went to the scene of the crime: the officious Marshmellow Peeps (turn your speakers down) website.

Here, in addition to discovering that they are actually called Peeps® - so the singular would also be Peeps® and I had been using the term wrongly above, but am too lazy at this point to fix it - I learned several other purportedly "fun" facts.

1. There are over 200 unofficial Peeps®© websites. Obviously the company that makes PeepsӨ knows this and their lawyers are tracking them. Be careful, carefree little Peeps™ website-making fans! One day they'll be all over you like poisonous yellow crystalline substance on a marshmallow flightless bird-like thing!

2. Over 70 million Peeps♫ chicks lined up beak-to-tail are needed to reach from New York City to Los Angeles. Huh. Why are they going from New York City to Lost Angeles? Is that where the mothership is going to meet them? Or are they stampeding? "Run for it! Peeps⅔ have escaped from New York City!" Aieeeee!

3. Loyal Peeps² Fans (whatever that means) LOVE their Peeps£...fresh, stale, frozen and even on Pizza! And apparently, if one is either sixth-grader or a teenager, in cappuccino with gooey sweet (insert some sweet-sounding flavor here) syrup.

4. The machines at the "Just Born Factory" can add 3800 Peeps¤ eyes per minute. Honest, that's what they call their factory on the website. Is this a cult or what? I've seen that steely glance in those 3800 per minute imperious Peeps¶ eyes...it makes me shudder to think about it.

5. In the 1950s, it took 27 hours to make one Peeps∞ chick.

Aha! Now I was getting somewhere! Why did it take 27 hours? Surely not for the marshmallows? Why, the United States has been harvesting marshmallows from the great plains of Mallow Marsh Flats in Oberst, Idaho for thousands of years! So it has something to do with that yellow coating. The part that doesn't melt.

Suspicious.

Curiously, Twinkies, another alleged foodstuff that probably doesn't melt in coffee (although I've personally done no experiments to either prove or disprove this theory - and I don't care if I'm wrong anyhow), were invented on April 6, 1930. A full twenty-two years before a Russian immigrant foisted PeepsЭ on an unknowing populace. Plenty of time for the Cossacks to refine and modify the design of Twinkie composition into a indestructible toxic yellow coating. The COSI museum in Columbus offers a display of decomposition rates of various foods. As I'm certain you can imagine, the Twinkie is virtually untouched by the decomposition process. Unfortunately, they don't have any Peepsδ in there, with or without coffee, so we can't know for certain.

So just what is that yellow coating? I didn't find out. I'm certain I could do so with a large federal grant which would probably lead to elaborate experiments that would take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we'd have to go all out to answer that and it's just not in the cards.

Wiki claims it's a sugar coating. They also note that "the sugar coating tends to burn and become unpalatable." Hah. It was unpalatable to begin with. It's indigestible. Don't believe me? Try putting one in your coffee...you can't tell me that your stomach acid is less toxic than that coffee. Well, you can, but I probably won't listen. The Peeps♣'ll just sit there, glaring out you out of its pair of the 3800 per minute black eyes, smug in the knowledge that it, like the cockroach, will be here, even following a nuclear exchange. Think about that.

Suspicious.

This idiocy is ©Mission@MarkCK.com, 2008.

[Rogue Mermaid]

That's pretty interesting Mission, I think I'm forwarding this one on to some Peep enthusiast friends.

[Red-Handed Jill]

Not a big fan of Peeps. They are made with marshmallows, which are made with gelatin, with is made by boiling the bones and hooves of dead animals.

[withoutaname]

if you stick them in the microwave you can grow giant peeps and then they are warm and gooey when you eat the mutant peep

[Misson]

That's pretty interesting Mission, I think I'm forwarding this one on to some Peep enthusiast friends.

Hmm. Link 'em back here instead so the source is somewhat clear. It took time to write that mess and I want everything I deserve from it - like a lawsuit from the Just Born company.

['Bastian Devareaux]

Bravo, Mission...

Your wit should very well be commended in the most hallowed of halls for I laughed quite deeply during your "thesis" of Peeps.

Never cared overmuch for them, myself...I am far more a meat and cheese man. And I dare say that if ever I were to mistakenly be tempted to partake of the "sacred" Peeps...I shall do well to re-think said action.

In coffee?! Sacrilege!!!

[Red Cat Jenny]

3800 Peeps¤ eyes per minute. is quite scary Mission...now I have that image stuck in my head

But 27 hours to make anything edible is equally disturbing.

Ahh the flaming peeps - One site advises to place the in the Micro for one minute..like withoutaname says and it will result in "a flaming orgy of sadistic Peeps-destruction"

I had heard that a twinky has a shelf life of 12 years..I have not eaten one since.

When I worked P/T in a stationary years back, and I had exhausted all the magazines papers and comic books and dealt with one too many of the bizarre sort of person who daily visits for no apprent reason.. I took to studying gummy bears. Those greasy, spicy ,godawful thiings. I found if you twist them like you're wringing a rag all the way into an indiscernable shape and the release them..after a while they go defialntly back to their original shape. Mission ..maybe you can shed some ligt on those as well.

Aye there's something afoot in the candy aisle..

Scary.

[lady snow]

mission - that was ne of the funniest things i've read in a long time! personally - i love peeps! and they have to be the right degree of staleness. my sister will agree with me on this one. it is a sugar coating - on the discovery channel, they had a show on just born and peeps and the history and the whole process of making peeps. the marshmallow stuff is called a slurry. i found a site with peeps linkls - geekbabe.com/peeps

about twinkies - i haven't had one of them sonce i was about 15 and had one with a fly in it!

[Dorian Lasseter]

One of my co workers gives me peeps every year as a practical joke. I will partake in them, but only when truly desperate for something to eat.

I've had friends take them camping and roast them over a fire, kind of like marshmellows for s'mores... Or even use them for s'mores...

Let them burn til the eyes fall off...

[Misson]

There's something I find appealing about a website named geekbabe.com. The "main page" is sort of droll. If only it had been, "There's nothing to see here. Move along" the circle would be complete.

[Duchess]

Hmmm. anyone tried microwaving a twinkie?

My sister is a Peeps fan. Every year. Must. Have. Peeps. They get frozen or microwaved as the mood demands.

[Cpt Sophia M Eisley]

CBS Sunday Morning had a decent segment on peeps this year -an update to one from a few years back. It covered alot of the staggering facts and figures Misson's mentioned here, from how many made per day to how many fan sites there are, to a pop culture artist that uses them for his work.

I'm not a fan of them myself (too sugary), but I'd try fiendish experiments on them if they ever were given to me.

[Rogue Mermaid]

Hmmm. anyone tried microwaving a twinkie?

No but my boyfriend bought a fried twinkie at the PA Renn Faire one year. It was pretty gross, all the filling melted into the cake and batter.

[Silkie McDonough]

Thank you Mission ...very droll.

[BriarRose Kildare]

Totally Awesome research Mission. As always you have out done your self.

Marshmellow peeps next to circus peanuts were me mum's favorite sugary snack to eat...but they both had to stale as stale can be.

As for me, I always look forward to the different Holidays to see what shapes and colors they will come out with.

[Misson]

If I recall circus peanuts rightly (and I may not) they are those wanly radioactive orange over-sized peanut-shaped things that sort of melt in your mouth when you eat them. The joy of eating them as I remember is the fact that they melt like that. In fact, I'll bet they would melt in coffee...

[LongTom]

Did someone mention fiendish experiments?

http://www.peepresearch.org/index.html

Muahahahahah....

[Red Cat Jenny]

[lady snow]

more research

http://www.keypad.org/bunnies/

[Salty]

Ach well, after watching one burn, I have nae ever been able to eat one since..........if you cane eat them anymore does that mean the peep has peeped thier last??????

[Mae]

Domestic horror at its finest....great read, Mission.

[JohnnyTarr]

" MORE CAFFEINE, MORE CAFFEINE" This is my motto for most days because I work second shift and I get up with the kids in the morning to spend some time with them. The proper way to eat a Peeps is to let it get stale and hard and then eat them.

[lady snow]

ye be a scroundrel after mine own heart there johnny

[JohnnyTarr]

ye be a scroundrel after mine own heart there johnny

Why thank you dear.

[Matusalem]

The remaining packages pf green peeps I have now have become hard as wood. ....I could use them as a doorstop.