The Official Sandwich of Massachusetts

Let me tell you a tale, dear readers, a tale of sticky sandwich spreads and of tongues stuck to the roofs of mouths. The tale begins several weeks ago, when, tired of dorky salads and stews carted to work in tupperware, I began to search for the perfect sandwich: simple, portable, economical, and above all, dear readers, delicioso. As a non-meat eater (I hesitate to call myself a vegetarian, having not consumed a vegetable other than a cocktail olive in weeks), the search for a sandwich is difficult. There are not many vegetarian sandwiches: the grilled cheese (only good hot off the grill), the non-grilled cheese (for poor people), and the dreaded "vegetable sandwich" (let us never speak of it again). I was about to give up my search when lo, I beheld a youngster in my Museum, chomping down on a sandwich so delicious I couldn't believe I had forgotten about it: the Fluffernutter.

OK that's it for my medieval storytelling, but I am drinking Sangria as I type, so don't expect miracles. Anyway, if you've never had a Fluffernutter, let me explain: peanut butter on one piece of bread, and Marshmallow Fluff on the other. Fluff is a delicious treat that all Massachusetts kids grew up on. I remember having Fluffernutters, Fluff on smores (pre-melted!) and the piece-de-resistance: a spoonful of Fluff submerged in a mug of hot cocoa that would soon majestically rise to the top. Now the reason only Massachusetts kids have such fond memories of Fluff is that the Fluff plant is in Lynn, MA, making it one of the few small factory businesses left in this crap state.

Now here comes the incredible part: a 7.5 oz jar of Fluff is just $0.99, and a 16 oz tub is just 2 bucks. More on this later.

So for a solid week I enjoyed Fluffernutters at work every day (an added benny is feeling young again when you eat one!), and as usual, when I become obsessed with something, I Google the shit out of it. This lead me to some interested findings. It turns out, that in 2006, douchebag State Senator Jarrett Barrios (how did they let a man named Jarrett become a senator? Somewhere a boathouse is missing a surf instructor) tried to add an amendment to a bill that would outlaw Fluff in Massachusetts schools. Apparently, he was outraged that his son was served a Fluffernutter for lunch at his Cambridge school (read the article here). Let's not even get into the anti-junk food argument now (though I might, later) - lets just talk about how lame this guy is for flipping out over something that happened at his kid's school - and taking to the State Senate! Its like a parent going to principal over a kid's problem - but much, much worse. Let's also talk about how stupid this guy is for proposing a bill (the Fluff Amendment) so ludicrous that anyone who hears about it is sure to remember Jarrett Barrios as "the douchebag who hates Fluff" forevermore. Finally, let's talk about how out of touch with his state this guy is for attacking one of its oldest and most beloved businesses.


However, the Fluff thickens (or hardens, as tends to happen when you leave the jar uncapped for too long). Outraged by Barrios's douchebaggery, State Rep Kathi-Anne Reinstein fought back by proposing a bill to make the Fluffernutter the Official Sandwich of Massachusetts (read the article here). Now this was all two years ago, and I don't know what happened to either bill, but my sources (Boston.com message boards) indicate that Barrios dropped his proposed amendment in shame, but will forever be known as a douchebag by yours truly.

So that covers the Fluff side of the sandwich, now onto peanut butter. As some of you may know, I recently started trying to eat all-natural foods. One of the hardest foods to give up was Jif Peanut Butter. You may think, when you're chowing down on Jif straight from the jar, that you are enjoying a healthy, high-protein snack, but you are in fact consuming a whopping 16g of fat, 3g of sugar and 150mg of sodium. More importantly, you are consuming 144 calories from Fat, and both fully and partially hydrogenated oils (see Nutrition Facts here). So I made the switch to natural peanut butter, with that nasty separated oil at the top. However, I found that if you stir it up once, then put it in the fridge, you don't need to stir again, and it is, in fact, quite good.

Finally, to wrap up the story, I recently decided that the brand of all-natural peanut butter I was eating was too expensive, so I looked for a cheaper alternative. It turns out that the cheapest natural peanut butter available is Teddie Peanut Butter, which happens to be made in Everett, MA! So there you have it, a Fluffernutter made with Fluff and Teddie Peanut Butter is truly the official sandwich of Massachusetts. Now I just need to find a nice, squishy, locally made white bread.


But the coolest thing about this sandwich is how cheap it is. As I mentioned before, a jar of Fluff is $0.99, a 16 oz jar of Teddie rings up at $2.49, and if you estimate a loaf of white bread at about $3.50 - that adds up to a week's worth of lunches at $6.98 - less than a Caesar Salad at my cafeteria! Remind me to re-read this entry when I'm a poor single mother.

This cheap dining option has been really helpful to me in my recent broke state - man, I could have written a whole entry about the cheap living I've been doing lately, but, alas, another time, dear readers.

Links Galore!
Marshmallow Fluff
Teddie Peanut Butter