At Fluff-inspired festival, sweet teeth come out to play
Dishes, exhibits take center stage
SOMERVILLE -- The gooey, white substance overflowed from a three-tiered chocolate cake that its creators modeled after an erupting volcano. The sticky marshmallow spread held together a bird's nest made of chow mein noodles, and inspired a new ice cream flavor dubbed Fluffy Chocolate.
Fluff, which gained notoriety over the summer after state Senator Jarrett Barrios tried to ban Fluffernutter sandwiches from school lunches, drew hundreds to Union Square Plaza yesterday for ``What the Fluff?" It was the first festival honoring Fluff in Somerville, where Archibald Query invented the sugary goo in 1917.
The event featured a cooking contest, a science fair, and an art exhibit -- all full of Fluff. The Flufferettes, a group of women decked out in ostrich feathers and sequins, performed a cover of ``Marshmallow World" by Brenda Lee. An 8-year-old boy with white paint on his face adopted the persona of ``Fluff Boy," a superhero clad in a red cape, blue gym shorts, and a yellow foam wig.
``Somerville is a sleepy little town but this is its claim to fame," said Grace Chiu, 32, a former Somerville resident who lives in Cambridge. ``There's something very nostalgic about Fluff. In a day of low carb, low sugar, why not love Fluff?"
Serena Hsu, 30, looked forward to tasting the famed spread for the first time. The booth also featured 300 dishes of ice cream, 500 Fluffernutter sandwiches, and 300 Fluff-infused Rice Krispies treats.
``I think it would taste good on a brioche," said Hsu, a marketing director for
Asked if her stores carried Fluff, she responded, ``Nooooo! That's contraband."
Alan Meisler , 42, said that his older brother, a notoriously picky eater, ``survived on Fluff" when they were children.
``It was one of the only things he would eat," said Meisler, who came from Hingham with his fiancee for the festival.
For $2, festivalgoers could take home ``The Yummy Book," the official Fluff cookbook published by Durkee-Mower, which manufactures the confection. The slim pamphlet includes recipes for pies, shakes, sauces, and salads using the spread.
Ann Petrone, 44, with three of her friends and co-workers, cooked up Fluff-inspired desserts, including the volcano cake. Put together by her team of crack ``Fluffologists," who called themselves ``The Right Fluff," the cake had a molten center of hot liquid Fluff mixed with dry ice, creating the impression of a Fluff eruption.
Michael Legere, a.k.a. Fluff Boy, judged the cooking contest with Joseph A. Curtatone , the mayor of Somerville. The grand prize was a year's supply of Fluff and a tour of the Fluff factory in Lynn.
``I don't know if it's healthy but I sure do eat a lot of it," said Legere, adding that he does not know where his mother keeps the Fluff at home.
``I hide the Fluff so I can have it late at night with my hot chocolate," said Gina Legere.
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 