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Philip Spiess
ONE MORE PEEP OUT OF CINCINNATI HISTORY
Easter is just around the corner, and, regardless of your personal religion (or none), you are apt to indulge in Easter-season candy. Ubiquitous among those Easter candies in our present day, along with jellybeans, malted milk hard-shell eggs, and chocolate rabbits [but, boys and girls, don’t eat those little chocolate eggs the bunnies leave behind on the front lawn!], etc., are Marshmallow "Peeps." Here in Washington, the Washington Post even runs an annual contest to make up three-dimensional miniature tableaux on a given theme using "Peeps." But did you know that they originated in Cincinnati?
The man who is credited with inventing them, Roscoe E. Rodda, was somewhat eccentric, particularly on the matter of religion, and perhaps a bit less than scrupulous in the matter of business. He spent sixteen years in Cincinnati (which was home to several national candy wholesalers at the time), jumping from one candy concern and one partnership to another. Born in Michigan in 1862, Rodda began working in the candy trade as a teenager for a Detroit firm that later became one of the fourteen candy companies which consolidated to form the National Candy Company, headquartered in St. Louis. He married in 1885 and moved to Cincinnati around 1891, where he was listed in city directories as a “confectioner.”
However, what brought Rodda to Cincinnati was not candy but the Church of Divine Healing, headed by Dr. John Alexander Dowie, which was seeking to expand beyond its home base of Chicago into other cities. Rodda was a deacon in the church; he had joined when his blind daughter’s sight was “restored” and his own tuberculosis “cured” by Dr. Dowie’s prayers. (Dr. Dowie had gained his fame by staging elaborate “Divine Healings” at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and there is some evidence that Rodda served as one of the “plants” in his audience.) In 1900, Dr. Dowie founded the city of Zion north of Chicago, where he established a conservative theocratic “utopia”; many things, such as a smoking, drinking, pork, and modern medicine were prohibited there – but candy was not.
Therefore Dr. Dowie brought Roscoe Rodda to Zion in 1902 to open a candy factory, the Zion Sugar and Confectionary Association, Rodda being general manager of Cincinnati’s Peter Echert Candy Company at the time. That same year, the Echert concern became part of the National Candy Company [see above]. However, the Zion candy company, initially one of Zion’s most successful commercial enterprises, closed after two years because of lack of funds. [Was Dr. Dowie, with his lavish lifestyle, skimming off the top? Probably.]
Thus by 1905 Roscoe Rodda was back in Cincinnati, a stockholder in the Reinhart & Newton candy manufacturing company. By 1907, he had partnered with Robert Hiner Putnam, a confectioner from Kentucky, and they opened stores on Main Street and Vine Street. (Putnam later founded Putnam’s Candy Co. in Cincinnati and is the reputed inventor of the Opera Cream, for which Putnam’s became famous.) Soon enough, however, in 1907 Putnam and Rodda split over a schism in the Zion church, of which Putnam had become a member. Rodda then established the Roscoe E. Rodda Candy Company in Cincinnati, but in 1908 he moved his candy company to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, interestingly close to the candy company of Milton Hershey.
In 1915, after some business chicanery on the part of the officers of Cincinnati’s Headley Chocolate company, the officers sold their controlling interest in the firm to Rodda, who now owned the American Caramel Company in York, Pennsylvania (founded as Lancaster Caramel in 1886 by Milton Hershey, who sold it to Rodda in 1900), which Rodda joined to Headley Chocolate (he still also ran the Rodda Candy Company in Cincinnati). Finally, in 1920, Rodda became vice president of a candy conglomerate consolidating the Headley Chocolate Company of Baltimore, the Lancaster Chocolate and Caramel Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the Reinhart & Newton Company of Cincinnati, which bought the Dolly Varden Chocolate Company in 1924. Roscoe Rodda died in 1941, and his candy company was sold to Samuel Born, a confectioner, in 1953 (Born is credited with inventing “jimmies” and the chocolate coating on ice cream bars).
From the 1920s on, the Rodda Candy Company concentrated on manufacturing Easter candies, including chocolate-covered marshmallows, but “Peeps” no doubt came later, as non-coated marshmallow products didn’t travel well and had a limited shelf life, though they could have been sold in the local retail trade. It is not known exactly when Roscoe Rodda developed his “Peeps”-style candy (not known by that name until later), but his formula for the candy was undoubtedly close to this one transcribed by Lafcadio Hearn [himself a former Cincinnati man] in his La Cuisine Creole: A Collection of Culinary Recipes (2nd ed., 1885):
19th-Century Marsh-mallow Paste Recipe:
“Dissolve one-half pound of gum arabic in one pint of water; strain it, add half a pound of fine sugar and place over the fire, stirring constantly till the sugar is dissolved and all is the consistency of honey, then add gradually the whites of four eggs, well beaten; stir the mixture till it becomes somewhat thin and does not adhere to the finger; pour all into a pan slightly dusted with powdered starch, and when cool divide into small squares. Flavor to taste, just before pouring out to cool.”
Originally the Marshmallow “Peeps” were hand-piped in pastry bags by up to eighty women. They would spoon small batches of freshly made marshmallow batter, which included whipped raw egg whites, into regular pastry tubes and then squirt out the baby chicks through the tiny fluted steel tip. The chicks were air-dried (not baked) into a pliant but firm kind of meringue. This long manual process took some twenty-seven hours and originally included little piped wings on the chicks; these were later cut off, and this made it easier to automate their production, making them less expensive to produce. Originally called Marshmallow Chics, Samuel Born [see above] named the marshmallow meringue chicks “Peeps” and popularized them. With the automation process, “Peeps” were made into a mass-produced, shippable product that had a better shelf life. They are now available everywhere in a variety of colors (and even other shapes and flavors).
For those who wish to try their hand at making “Peeps,” here is a modern version of the recipe given above:
20th-Century Marshmallow Recipe:
2 Tbs. Unflavored Gelatin ¼ cup Cold Water ¾ cup Boiling Water
2 cups Sugar 1/8 tsp. Salt 1 tsp. Vanilla Confectioner’s Sugar
In a mixing bowl, pour the cold water over the gelatin and set aside until the gelatin absorbs all of the water. Meanwhile, cook the boiling water with the sugar to the soft-ball stage (238 degrees F.). Add the salt and vanilla to the gelatin. Pour the hot sugar syrup slowly over the gelatin, beating constantly until cool and thick. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and coat it with the confectioner’s sugar. Pour the marshmallow mixture into the pan and dust it with more confectioner’s sugar. Let it set for several hours, then cut into 1-inch squares* and roll in the confectioner’s sugar.
[* You're on your own for shaping the marshmallow mixture into a "Peeps" configuration!]
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