Sandwich fight gets sticky

An anti-Fluff crusade by a Cambridge state senator appeared to be collapsing yesterday, as a rival measure to designate the Fluffernutter the state sandwich created a new divide over the merits of the tempting, sticky spread.

Last week Senator Jarrett T. Barrios blasted Marshmallow Fluff, saying he was ``not sure we should even be calling it a food." Yesterday, his spokesman backed away from such tough talk, saying that Barrios just wanted to spark a general discussion about school nutrition.

Meanwhile, the debate over designating the Fluffernutter the state sandwich drew celebrity chefs, a suburban school food service director, and the chief executive of Brigham's Ice Cream into the whipped-up fray.

It's no wonder the issue has caused such controversy. Fluff, in all its gooey, sugary ubiquity, seems to tap into people's earliest childhood memories of eating Fluffernutters on paper plates at summer camp, school , and neighbors' backyards.

``For anybody in politics in Massachusetts to take a stance against Fluff, I'm tempted to say it's almost anti-American," said Justin Schwartz, author of ``The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook," a 148-page compendium of Fluff recipes from some of America's leading chefs. ``It is definitely anti-Massachusetts. It's like, `Let's ban pineapples in Hawaii.' Come on! It doesn't make any sense."

Fluff, he pointed out, was invented by a Massachusetts man and is still produced in a family-owned factory in Lynn. ``Fluff," Schwartz said, ``should be named the official state food." Fluff is a milk-white blend of corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white, and vanilla flavoring.

Yesterday, Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein doled out bite-sized Fluffernutters in her State House office, until she ran out of bread. She was building support, one morsel at a time, for her bill, which would add Fluff and peanut butter slathered on white or wheat to the pantheon of official state foods.

While some lawmakers signed on to her bill as a joke, Reinstein said, ``some of them signed on and are saying `I'm with you.' "

Colin B. Durrant, Barrios's spokesman, said Barrios decided to back Reinstein's bill simply because ``he likes Fluff."

``He's never said he doesn't like it," Durrant said. ``They have it at his house. But whether or not schools should be serving it five days a week as the main course is another question."

Barrios, displeased that his son was served a Fluffernutter at his Cambridge elementary school, said last week he planned to amend a junk food bill to limit the serving of Fluff to once a week in schools statewide. Almost as soon as word of the bill spread, Fluff fans took umbrage, barraging Barrios with criticism on radio talk shows and Internet blogs.

Yesterday, Durrant said he did not know if Barrios would still push for his amendment, slated for Senate debate as early as next Thursday.

Brigham's Ice Cream's chief executive Chuck Green joined the side of the Fluffernutter supporters yesterday, not too surprising since the company introduced its new Fluffernutter flavor in April. The Arlington-based company has a Fluffernutter jingle contest on its website.

``As another near-century tradition in New England, Brigham's Ice Cream supports your view that the Fluffernutter Sandwich is, without question, a classic delicacy," Green wrote in a letter to Reinstein.

But Jody Adams , the chef at Rialto, a chic, much-lauded restaurant in Cambridge, said that Reinstein's bill flies in the face of efforts to remove candy bars and sodas from school vending machines. She said she doesn't serve Fluff to her own children, who are 16 and 10.

``I don't think it's a food; I think it's a candy," Adams said. ``It's essentially a soft meringue . . . so to say that it's the state sandwich sends a message that is counter to all of the efforts that are beginning to be made to focus on what is delicious, health foods."

Chris Schlesinger , owner of East Coast Grill in Cambridge, spent three years researching the world's sandwiches for a new restaurant he is opening. The Fluffernutter won't make the menu.

``I would be embarrassed to have that as our state sandwich," he said. ``It's a kid sandwich; it's a novelty sandwich. It doesn't strike me as a serious sandwich. Are you going to put that up against a Reuben, a Cuban, a corned beef on rye?"

But in Bedford schools, the Fluffernutter appeases finicky eaters and boosts students' daily calorie intake, said food service director Robert Clickstein . A Fluffernutter on wheat, he said, packs about 328 calories, about the same as a peanut butter and jelly.

``If you're going to ban the fluff, you might as well ban the jelly at this point," he said.

State Senator Robert L. Hedlund , a Weymouth Republican, agreed, suggesting that the anti-Fluff movement could spell trouble for another popular locally produced filling.

``Welch's jelly could be next," he said.

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.