Dispatches

Few things in the outdoor world carry the kind of universal, cross-generational gravity that a s'more does. It is not a complicated recipe. It does not require culinary training or exotic ingredients. And yet, the simple act of roasting a marshmallow over open flame and pressing it between graham crackers and chocolate has become one of the most enduring rituals in American camping culture. The s'more is a campfire handshake. It is the thing that tells you the day of hiking, driving, paddling, or exploring is officially done, and the night belongs to the fire.

To understand how this happened, you have to go back about a century, to a time when the American outdoors was being rediscovered not as wilderness to be conquered, but as a place to build character, community, and self-reliance.

Roots in the Scouting Movement

The story of s'mores begins with marshmallows, and marshmallows begin much further back than most people realize. The ancient Egyptians, around 2000 BCE, harvested sap from the root of the Althaea officinalis plant (the "marsh mallow"), combining it with honey and nuts to create a medicinal confection reserved for royalty and used to treat sore throats. By the 19th century, French confectioners had refined the concept into the spongey, sugar-based candy we recognize today. Once manufacturing processes made marshmallows affordable and widely available in the early 1900s, they became a natural companion to the growing American camping movement.

The Boy Scouts of America included marshmallow roasting in "The Official Handbook for Boys" as early as 1911. Campfire Marshmallows, introduced commercially in 1917, recognized scouts as a core customer and ran advertisements encouraging boys to carry marshmallows on hikes. But it was the Girl Scouts who took the next decisive step. In 1927, a recipe titled "Some More" appeared in the handbook Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts. The recipe, attributed to troop leader Loretta Scott Crew, called for 16 marshmallows, eight bars of plain chocolate, and graham crackers. The instructions were direct: toast two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp, gooey state, then place them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The handbook noted that the heat of the marshmallow would melt the chocolate, and that while the result tasted like "some more," one was really enough.

That last line, of course, was optimistic at best.

The Graham Cracker Connection

The graham cracker itself has an origin story worth noting. In 1829, a Presbyterian minister named Sylvester Graham developed a cracker made from unsifted whole wheat flour as part of a strict vegetarian diet intended to curb what he considered unhealthy physical urges. The original graham cracker was bland by design. It was a health food, not a dessert component. By the time it found its way into the s'more nearly a century later, the cracker had been sweetened with honey and refined sugar, making it unrecognizable to Reverend Graham's original intentions but perfectly suited for its new role as the structural backbone of a campfire dessert.

The chocolate bar, too, has its own lineage. Joseph Fry introduced the first solid chocolate bar in the mid-1800s, and the eventual merger of Henri Nestlé's and Daniel Peter's companies brought milk chocolate to a price point accessible to everyday consumers. By the early 20th century, Hershey's milk chocolate bars had become widely available across the United States, making them the default choice for s'mores and cementing what would become a nearly inseparable association between the brand and the campfire treat.

Hershey's milk chocolate carries a flavor profile that is distinctly different from European milk chocolates, and the reason traces back to how Milton Hershey solved a practical problem in the early 1900s. To mass-produce chocolate year-round, Hershey needed a method to stabilize the fresh milk used in his formula. His solution involved a proprietary process (still a trade secret known simply as the "Hershey Process") in which the milk undergoes controlled lipolysis, a breakdown of fatty acids that produces butyric acid. Butyric acid occurs naturally in dairy products like butter and Parmesan cheese, but in Hershey's chocolate it creates a slightly tangy, faintly sour note that European palates often find unfamiliar. For generations of American consumers, however, that tang is simply what milk chocolate tastes like. It is the baseline flavor they grew up with, and other American chocolate manufacturers have followed suit, some even adding butyric acid to their own formulations to match what the domestic market expects. That distinctive Hershey's tang, born from a manufacturing necessity over a century ago, is now inseparable from the s'more experience for most Americans.

From "Some More" to S'more: How the Name Stuck

The name evolved organically. The 1927 Girl Scout recipe used "Some More" as its title. By 1938, the term appeared in Henry William Gibson's Recreational Programs for Summer Camps. Over the following decades, the contraction "s'more" became standard, though according to Merriam-Webster, the term was not formally recorded until 1974. The name captures the compulsive nature of the thing itself. You finish one, and the impulse is immediate and universal: you want some more.

Because scouting organizations operated on a national scale, the recipe spread rapidly from troop to troop, camp to camp, coast to coast. What began as a regional campfire snack became a nationwide phenomenon within a single generation. By the mid-20th century, as post-war Americans headed into the woods in record numbers, s'mores had become as synonymous with camping as the tent, the sleeping bag, and the Coleman lantern.

S'mores by the Numbers

The scale of the s'more economy is significant. Americans purchase approximately 90 million pounds of marshmallows annually, and an estimated half of the marshmallows sold during the summer months are toasted over a fire. National S'mores Day, observed on August 10th, has become a recognized cultural marker. According to survey data, nearly two out of three Americans who enjoy s'mores do so around a backyard bonfire or while camping over a fire. S'mores ingredient purchases spike by over 140% on Memorial Day weekend compared to the prior week, with another surge over the Fourth of July. It is not a niche tradition. It is embedded in the seasonal rhythm of outdoor life in America.

The Overlanding Connection

The growth of overlanding as a distinct outdoor pursuit has given s'mores a new context and a new audience. Overlanding, broadly defined as self-reliant, vehicle-based adventure travel where the journey itself is the primary goal, has roots in African and Australian expedition culture but experienced explosive growth in North America beginning around 2007 with the founding of Overland Journal magazine and the first Overland Expo in Prescott, Arizona. What started as a niche pursuit for Land Cruiser and Land Rover enthusiasts has expanded into a broad movement encompassing everything from built-out Tacomas and Gladiators to Sprinter van conversions and rooftop tent setups on stock SUVs.

Overlanders tend to be self-sufficiency-oriented. They carry their own water, cook their own food, and camp in dispersed, primitive locations far from established campgrounds. The campfire, where regulations and conditions allow, remains central to the experience. And where there is a campfire, there are s'mores. The tradition has transferred seamlessly from the scout camp to the dispersed campsite on BLM land, from the KOA fire ring to the overlanding rally. The ingredients are inherently packable: marshmallows are light, chocolate bars are flat and compact, and graham crackers travel well in a rigid container. For vehicle-based campers who already have a fire pit, a grill grate, and a camp kitchen built into their rig, the s'more is the easiest win on the menu.

The overlanding community has also brought a gear-forward mentality to the tradition. Where a scout might whittle a green stick from a nearby tree, the modern overlander is more likely to carry telescoping stainless steel roasting forks, a dedicated fire pit, and a purpose-built container for the ingredients. The ethos of "a place for everything and everything in its place" that drives overlanding vehicle builds extends naturally to camp kitchen organization, and that includes the s'mores kit.

Backpacking and the Case for a Smaller Fire

For backpackers and minimalist travelers, the campfire equation changes. Open fires are restricted or prohibited in many backcountry areas, and even where they are permitted, the Leave No Trace ethic discourages casual fire-building. Weight and packability become critical factors. This is where purpose-built, compact fire sources earn their place in a pack.

The PDW Ti-Line MFSS (Multi-Fuel Survival Stove) was designed for exactly this kind of self-reliant backcountry use. Constructed from aerospace-grade 6AL-4V titanium, the MFSS weighs just 4.3 ounces (122g) and packs down to nest inside most common 500ml backpacking pots. Its engineered double-wall construction directs airflow to maximize combustion, producing a hotter, cleaner burn with less smoke. The stove runs on biomass fuel sources that can be foraged on site (twigs, pinecones, small pieces of wood, even cardboard), solid fuel tabs like hexamine, or, with the optional Ti-Line Alcohol Burner Core, denatured alcohol or high-proof spirits.

The MFSS was designed primarily for boiling water and preparing meals in the field, but its compact, controlled flame also makes it a capable marshmallow-roasting platform. For the backpacker who refuses to leave the s'more tradition behind at the trailhead, the MFSS provides a field-expedient biomass fire source that keeps the ritual alive without the footprint of a full campfire. Feed it a handful of twigs, hold a marshmallow over the flame on a whittled stick or a titanium skewer, and you are right back in that universal moment by the fire.

The PDW Camp Stash Box: Born from S'mores

The question of how to carry s'mores ingredients in a backpack without ending up with a bag of crumbs and melted chocolate led directly to the creation of the PDW Camp Stash Box 400ML. This stainless steel, bento-style container was specifically designed to house three full sets of s'mores components: enough for one s'more per night over a three-day weekend, with one extra set as backup in case you drop something in the dirt or decide to double up or share.

The 400ml (13.5 oz) capacity, double-latch lid closure, and removable silicone gasket create a watertight seal that protects contents from moisture, crushing, and the determined efforts of camp-raiding squirrels and other opportunistic wildlife. The food-grade stainless steel construction ensures no BPA or phthalate leaching, and the compact footprint fits easily in a backpack, a vehicle glove box, or a camp kitchen drawer. A custom PDW campfire graphic embossed on the lid leaves no ambiguity about the box's founding purpose.

While the Camp Stash Box was born from s'mores, its utility extends well beyond dessert storage. It serves equally well as a watertight container for tinder, fatwood, pine pitch resin, and matches; a compact individual first-aid kit; or a secure snack vault for any provisions that need protection from the elements and from wildlife. The design reflects a principle that runs through the PDW product line: purpose-built gear that solves a specific problem while remaining versatile enough to adapt to whatever the field demands.

Breaking Tradition: The Chocolate Cookie Upgrade

The classic s'more formula of graham cracker, Hershey's milk chocolate, and a roasted marshmallow is iconic for a reason. It works. The sweetness of the honey-flavored cracker, the melt of the milk chocolate, and the caramelized sugar of the toasted marshmallow form a combination that has survived nearly a century without meaningful revision. But some campers, particularly those with a taste for European confections, have begun to experiment with substitutions that combine the cracker and chocolate layers into a single component.

Brands like Milka and LU Petit Écolier offer chocolate-covered biscuits that serve as a compelling alternative to the traditional graham cracker and chocolate bar pairing. Milka's Choco Biscuit features a crisp cookie base topped with a thick layer of Alpine milk chocolate. LU's Petit Écolier, a French butter biscuit topped with glossy European milk chocolate in a design dating back to the 1880s, brings a richer, more refined chocolate-to-biscuit ratio. In either case, the approach simplifies the build: two chocolate biscuits replace the graham crackers and chocolate bar entirely, with the roasted marshmallow sandwiched between them.

The result is a denser, more chocolate-forward s'more that trades some of the honey-sweetness of the graham cracker for the buttery depth of a European biscuit. It is not the classic. Purists will note the difference. But for campers willing to break with tradition and pack something a little different in their Camp Stash Box, the chocolate biscuit s'more is a worthwhile field upgrade that still honors the core ritual: fire, marshmallow, chocolate, and good company under an open sky.

Why the Ritual Endures

The s'more endures because it is not really about the food. It is about the fire. It is about the pause at the end of the day when the work of making camp is done and the only task left is to sit, watch the coals, and share something sweet with the people around you. Every camper, backpacker, and overlander knows this moment. The light drops. The temperature shifts. Someone pulls out the marshmallows. The conversation slows to the pace of the fire itself.

This is one of the oldest human experiences there is: gathering around a flame, sharing food, telling stories, watching the sparks rise into a dark sky. The s'more is just the latest version of that tradition, barely a century old in a lineage that stretches back to the first campfire. And whether you are making yours over a roaring oak fire at a dispersed campsite in the Owens Valley, over the controlled flame of a titanium biomass stove at 10,000 feet, or in your own backyard on a Tuesday night because sometimes you just need to slow down, the act is the same.

Find a fire. Roast a marshmallow. Make something good. Share it.

Find a way or make one.