Fluff is the stuff!

I grew up with Marshmallow Fluff. I was having Fluff withdrawl for a long time after moving to North Carolina. That marshmallow cream stuff you find at some grocery stores sucks. Fluff is the stuff. I need to trademark that phrase.

When on vacation, I would bring back Fluff. I had people send me some in the mail. When people I knew were going up north, I would have them bring me Fluff. A northern grocery chain used to carry it, then went out of business. I had a hard time finding it. Finally, Lowe's Foods and Food Lion started carrying it in some but not all stores. I named my cat Fluffernutter.

Recently, a Massachusetts law maker tried to ban Fluffernutters from school lunches. The Fluffernutter was going to be named the official sandwich of Mass. Fluff sales on the internet went up 800% after the idiot representative dissed Fluff.

Here is the article on the subject:

Fluff's free publicity leads to sweet payoff

By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | July 2, 2006

Jonathan Durkee has two words for state Senator Jarrett Barrios : Thank you.

Durkee is treasurer of the Lynn company that produces Marshmallow Fluff, which Barrios targeted last month when he tried to ban the Fluffernutter sandwich from school lunches .

But Barrios did not realize how much of a New England icon sweet marshmallow spread slathered over white bread and twinned with peanut butter was. The bill to ban it drew legions of protective Fluffernutter patriots to arms. In a profile-in-courage counterattack, a state representative even proposed making the Fluffernutter the official sandwich of Massachusetts.

The Fluffernutter Wars were on.

``Nightline" chimed in, along with Regis and Kelly and The Los Angeles Times. Red-state Americans who never heard of Fluff began to wonder what it was, and displaced New Englanders around the country started licking their lips with a Pavlovian reflex forged in childhood. Fluffernutter: Home. Eat. Happy. Good.

Then the inevitable. Internet orders sent to the mother ship in Lynn skyrocketed 800 percent from 10 to 80 cases a day -- and not just from expatriate Bostonians. Curious Fluffernutter first-timers like James Harmon of Nashville dialed in.

``I read a couple articles and saw a story on CNN," he wrote in an e-mail. ``So I had to try [it]."

Durkee said it was too early to tell if the bump would carry through to the holiday season, when sales typically peak. In Lynn, fingers remained crossed. A thank-you letter to Barrios? Not yet in the mail.