The History of S'mores: Ancient Greeks, Girl Scouts, and One Very Puritanical Minister

The first recipe for the campfire treat is 95-years-old, but the seeds of the s'more go back much further.

While the first official recipe appeared more than 95 years ago, the undocumented tradition of the s'more may have started earlier.

The very first marshmallows came from a plant called Althaea officinalis. Early civilizations, including the ancient Greeks and Romans, used the root and leaves of the plant for medicinal purposes, often to help with inflammation (and as a laxative). In fact, the word "Althaea" comes from the Greek "altheo" meaning "to cure."

The French who first marketed marshmallow as a treat rather than a medicine, combining the root juice of the plant with eggs and sugar beaten into a foam. They formed the soft paste into a lozenge and called it pâte de guimauve. Its purpose was two-fold: to soothe the throat and taste good. But this treat was expensive and labor intensive, much like the marshmallow-based medicines of the day. By the end of the 19th century, gelatin replaced the juice from the actual plant because it was a close approximation in taste and form, but a much cheaper alternative.

Graham crackers were originally invented to curb sex drive. Early 19th-century New Jersey Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham believed that humanity, as Atlas Obscure reports, was on its way to moral collapse due to an obsession with carnal desires. (I CHOSE NOT TO EXPAND ON THIS PORTION.)

During the 1890s, a marshmallow roasting fad took hold of summer resort towns in the Northeast. Places like Asbury Park in New Jersey hosted such events, which often drew a young crowd given that newspapers at the time called the roasts an "excellent for flirting" since people could nibble off each other's roasting sticks. 

Anyway, it was not until 1927 that it all came together in gooey symphony.

The first official recipe for a s'more came out in the 1927 Girl Scout guidebook, Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.

While the book was meant to give advice on how to be a good Girl Scout its lasting legacy was the "Some More." The recipe, which was later credited to a troop leader named Loretta Scott Crew, calls for 16 graham crackers, eight bars of plain chocolate, and 16 marshmallows. Next, it says to toast the marshmallows to a "crispy, gooey state." Then, put the marshmallow on top of a chocolate bar and in between two graham crackers, and violà, you got a "Some More." It's unclear when the name was shortened to simply "s'more," but various Girl Scout publications referred to the treat as "Some More" until at least 1971! 

If nothing else, it all makes for a good campfire story.