As easter approaches I feel the need to remind you that peeps ™ are not food.
The ubiquitous marshmallow critters were a part of my spring tradition for decades. I don’t like marshmallows, and yet, each year I found myself putting one small sleeve of little yellow chicks into the easter basket. For a brief period I thought of myself as a kitchy version of Martha Stewart and baked cupcakes topped with frosting and a toasted coconut nest with a brooding peep upon her jelly bean eggs. There were years I would walk a mile to visit choclatier Jacques Torres. I would purchase hand crafted chocolate wonders and place them next to the yellow, sugar-covered, industrial lab created treats. More recently, I nestled the peeps in with organic jelly beans and organic gummy bunnies and fair trade organic chocolate bunnies.
On the left are peepcakes circa 2015. Peep Gothic and Peep Camp are awesome but, sadly, not mine.
I understand that they are not a healthy treat. But sugar, corn syrup, gelatin and less than ½ of a percent of color, preservative, and carnuba wax? come on. Two little birds. Once year. By the way, yellow birds. Bunnies are not peeps. Bunnies do not peep. Pink and blue chicks? Really? No, anything other than yellow chicks is just wrong. But I digress. Two birds. Once a year.
And then we moved to Greenville. We lived in a little house just at the edge of downtown where children from the neighborhood would walk by on their way to school. Some one dropped a peep. Technically they dropped a purple, bunny shaped thing sold under the peep brand, not a yellow bird, so you know…
It was at the edge of the side walk directly in front of our house. Perky eared, smiley bunny. No ants approached the peep. Interesting. In the warm spring evenings cockroaches could be found on the sidewalks. They did not appear to eat the peep. Surprising. The parade of dogs, practically a westminster dog show of mixed breed with mixed success, who walked their owners each day did not eat the peep. Sunshine did not fade the peep. Light rain did not run the color of the peep. Perky eared, smiley bunny remained for well over a month before we swept him away with organic debris.
That was the last time I ate a peep. Mystery of culinary science: peeps are not food.
