Please, ma’am, I want s’mores…
By the time I was six years old, I had consumed countless s’mores. They’ve been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember and I can’t really imagine having a campfire without them. But then, I am an American girl, born and bred! And, in America, we do love our s’mores!
Of course, when you live in a foreign land, you begin to realise that the things you grew up with as “normal” parts of everyday life aren’t necessarily normal outside of your home borders. Which is, apparently, very true for s’mores!
So when the opportunity struck to teach my 6- and 4-year-old friends (and their slightly older than that Mum) how to make s’mores, I had to do it!
And that’s what I did this evening: I brought a bit of America’s culinary culture to Scotland. And with success, I might add! (If running out of marshmallows can be counted as a success.)
Of course, it wasn’t that easy. I had to get proper marshmallows from an import store in Glasgow (well, I sweet-talked a friend into getting them for me) and then I had to find close-enough substitutes for the graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolate. In the end, McVities’ Digestives and Cadbury Dairy Milk.
And in exchange for me teaching my little friends how to make American(ish) s’mores, they taught me a series of Scottish camp songs and let me play on the trampoline with them. Yes, a fair trade, indeed!
Oh! And I got to teach the kids how to build a fire, too. So that was pretty awesome.
So, now that you’ve had the original and the close-enough substitutes, what did you really think of the subs? Are they good enough? Will we be trying them when you come for a visit?
Nothing beats proper graham crackers and Hershey’s. I’ll have to add a a box of graham crackers to my shopping list when I visit home.