LavaBox and Miette Et Chocolat
These two celebrichefs are teaming up with your favorite campfire in a can to bring chef-driven s’mores to the glampfire.
Toasty, gooey, chocolatey goodness with that just-sweet-enough graham cracker crunch. You know what I’m talking about. Right now you’re daydreaming images of gathering around the campfire and squishing that finely toasted, golden-brown marshmallow between two perfect graham cracker halves. Rich, melted chocolate is oozing out the sides of the world’s most nostalgic campfire meal.
Yes campers, we’re talkin’ s’mores. . . A.K.A. “some mores”. As in, you'll want some more of that delicious sweet treat. But did you know that even this classic—and you might assume uncontroversial— American delicacy actually has a widely disputed past shrouded in mystery?
Fact-Checking the History of America’s Favorite Campfire Treat
With the next best innovation in s’more history upon us (keep reading, I’ll get to that part after this brief history lesson), we decided to take a look back at the early days of America’s favorite campfire delicacy.
A cursory search of the great and powerful Google will lead you to believe that the s’more (or, at that time, “some more”) was invented by an ingenious girl scout troop leader, Loretta Scott Crew. Ms. Loretta is often credited with authoring the first published s’more recipe in the 1927 edition of Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, a Girl Scouts of America guidebook.
Simple enough, right?
Not quite. . . Dig in deeper and you risk falling down a dark and mysterious rabbit hole of marshmallows, girl scouts, and summer camp controversy.
Loretta Scott Crew, portable campfire chef extraordinaire, or a figment of our imagination?
I’ll spare you the details and countless differing opinions that I dug through to come to this consensus—yes, even marshmallows and chocolate are dowsed in controversy. If you dig deep enough into the archives, it appears that Loretta Scott Crew never existed.
While there is a recipe for “some mores” (toasted marshmallows and Hershey chocolate sandwiched between graham crackers, just as we know today) listed in the 1927 edition of Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, there’s no record of Loretta Scott Crew authoring it. In fact, no one can seem to find any record or proof that Ms. Loretta ever existed.
Our marshmallow-maven may truly be little more than an internet hoax like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. A hoax that spread like wildfire to the point that Loretta Scott Crew’s Wikipedia page has since been removed altogether to try and contain this “fake news” from embedding itself in history.
What can we confirm about the history of the world’s tastiest portable campfire dessert?
While it’s less widely documented than the appearance of s’mores in the girl scout's yearly guidebook, a 1925 edition of a newspaper called The Norwalk Hour featured s’mores in an article titled Patrol Leaders Have Outing: Fall Plans Discussed And "Camp Andree Dishes" Introduced.
The article goes on to cover a group of girl scouts and troop leaders who met at Camp Andree, a summer camp in northern New York. They indulged in innovative “Camp Andreee Dishes” cooked over the campfire. They called these convenient new dishes s’mores and kabobs.
This history is hazy. Try as we might, the internet can’t seem to come to a common consensus on the exact birth of the s’more and at who’s hands the recipe was conceived. What I can say with assurance is that each integral ingredient has a rich history of its own.
Marshmallows originally come from the gooey substance produced by the mallow plant. It was used as medicine and as food all the way back in ancient Egypt and Greece. Sticky sweet marshmallows like we know today were popularized by a French confectioner. By adding sugar and eggs (later replaced with gelatin) to the goo from the mallow plant, he created small spherical candies named for the plant they originally came from.
The Graham Cracker is the youngest of the s’more ingredients, created by Sylvester Graham in the 1800s. Graham was a minister with some interesting beliefs about eating common American foods and immoral sexual desires (I’ll leave that story for another time, or you can brush up on more history here). Long story short, Graham created his bland, whole wheat crackers to help American’s overcome their unquenched and condemnable sexual appetites.
Chocolate stems all the way back as far as 350 B.C. in Mesoamerica, where it was eventually picked up by the Spanish conquistadors and popularized throughout Europe and the U.S. Entrepreneur Milton S. Hershey acquired a chocolate press at the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, enabling him to craft Hershey Chocolate as we know it today.
Elevating the Outdoor Experience: A Campfire in a Can And Glamper-Approved S’mores
It’s the hottest collaboration in the history of campfire desserts since the conception of the s’more itself (whenever that actually was).
LavaBox Chief Eruption Officer Joshua Thurmond and the celebrity chef, dynamic dessert-slinging duo, Chef Gonzo Jimenez and Chef David Lewis of Miette Et Chocolat, are ready to etch their own names into s’mores history.
Who is Miette et Chocolat?
If you’re not a devout foodie, Denverite. . . Or someone who watches Netflix (does that person even exist?), Miette et Chocolat is a modern take on a French Patisserie that came to life in the Stanley Marketplace just outside Denver, Colorado.
Chef Gonzo Jimenez, who you may know from the Netflix original series Bake Squad, and Chef David Lewis are co-owners of this luxury chocolate shop and patisserie.
Miette et Chocolat co-owner Chef Gonzo Jimenez is originally from Argentina. He began working in the service industry at 17 years old after being inspired by the importance of large family gatherings around the dinner table that he witnessed growing up.
Chef Gonzo has traveled throughout North and South America, working in high-end hotels, teaching classes, and performing demos. He’s amassed awards and recognition for his decadent confections and launched his own personal line of chocolates that are available throughout hotels across Manhattan.
Miette et Chocolat co-owner David Lewis heads the pastry end of the business out of Denver, Colorado. He was raised in rural Illinois and begin cooking in local restaurants and country clubs at only 15 years old.
Chef David Lewis found his true passion as a Master Pastry Chef. He’s received many awards throughout his career, including “Best Artistic Showpiece” at the 2012 Pastry Live competition in Atlanta. He honed his craft working around the world from cruise ships to various Las Vegas mega hotels and the historic Brown Palace in Denver, Colorado.
LavaBox and Miette et Chocolat Join Forces to Create the Miette Ultimate S’more Kit
When I chatted with Chef David Lewis, he filled me in on the early days of Miette et Chocolat in the Stanley Marketplace. He explained the value of community and collaboration between each local business housed in the Stanley Marketplace.
When Gonzo came to David with the idea to serve the ever-growing population of glampers, they knew they wanted to continue building partnerships and collaborate with another local Colorado business. Who better to help spice up camper’s relationships with the classic treat than the king of campfires himself, Josh Thurmond.
I’m sure you’ve gotten adventurous on a camping trip once or twice. You get a little crazy and swap out the traditional Hershey bar for a Reese's Cup, add peanut butter and Nutella to your campfire sandwich, or if you’re like me, you slap a roasted Hostess Cupcake between those two tasty grahams.
Josh and the guys over at Miette et Chocolat understand that. They know the importance of the nostalgia that a chocolatey, ooey-gooey s’more holds. But they also know world-class dessert. They know that glampers and campers these days aren’t always looking to settle for the classic Honey Maid Grahams and Hershey chocolate.
The Miette Ultimate S’more Kit holds everything you need to bring a chef-driven, premium dessert experience to the campfire. Each kit comes complete with four servings of each carefully crafted flavor: 60% Cocoa Dark Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Madness.
Inside your kit, you’ll also find:
Fixings for up to 12 s’mores
24 homemade graham crackers
16 marshmallows—there’s a few extra because you know at least one or two will pay sacrifice to the campfire gods
12 roasting sticks
Think of the Miette Ultimate S’more Kit as a convenient camping meal kit—premium quality, foodie-approved, prepped for you, and easily portable. When I chatted with David, he said that he and Gonzo aimed to make getting out and enjoying the simple joy of dining around the campfire, simple and accessible (and a little bit luxurious).
If your mouth is watering and you just can’t wait to fire up the campfire in a can and throw some s’mores on the fire, the Miette Ultimate S’more Kit is currently available only at fireanytime.com.
Don’t forget to go follow Miette et Chocolat on Instagram for some of the best #foodporn that will ever grace your feed.