For many Cincinnatians, the Easter season means the resurrection of Christ, egg hunts with tiny tots or feasting during Passover. For this Cincinnatian, it means candy. Spring heralds my annual gaining of five solid pounds due to the consumption of candy. I scour Kroger for Reese’s eggs, crème-filled rabbits and saccharine Harry Potter-themed jellybeans. This year, however, I met a new foe in the aisles. While autumn has an abundance of pumpkin spice, spring this year has a distinct flavor: Peeps.
Yes, Peeps, as an adjective — the marshmallow chicks and rabbits famous for comically exploding in microwaves and lining Easter baskets. The animal-shaped treats, which taste a bit like licking stale sugar off a café table, are suddenly the most popular flavor of the season. Color me pastel surprised.
What’s truly fascinating about this phenomenon is the fact that Peeps taste like marshmallows rolled around in sweaty palms and then dipped in sugar. There’s no root vegetable tied to the flavor, no spice to be had. Just pure, giggle-inducing sweetness. Quite possibly I’m not their target demographic, but I don’t understand what’s so special about a snack that spikes your blood sugar more than your interest.
Nevertheless, I purchased everything Peeps flavored. For, you know, science?
By the time I scoured the aisles for the marshmallow-chick derivatives, my shopping basket was full. There’s Peeps milk (in a variety of flavors). There are Peeps-flavored Oreos. There’s limited-edition Peeps advertised as “strawberry crème dipped” and “sour watermelon.” There’s a lot to unpack, both emotionally and on your palate.
I purchased the egg nog and orange crème-flavored Peeps milk. Both are made available by Prairie Farms dairy company. On their official website, Prairie Farms advertises the orange crème flavor as: “Remember your favorite poke cake growing up? Today, we have a new twist, using Prairie Farms Peeps Orange Crème-flavored milk.”
My first thought upon trying Peeps milk was that this needs to be made into a horrible White Russian. My second thought was that the orange crème flavor does not remind me of my childhood. My third thought was, damn it, I had another sip. It was good. It tastes kind of like a melted dreamsicle. The egg nog flavor is literally the egg nog that all of the world attempts to market to you for Christmas, so cheers capitalism for sneaking the dregs in a few months later.
At the time of writing this article (approx. 10 minutes after having my first sip of Peeps milk), I invited three people over to my apartment to please come drink this milk. I both wanted to share the horror of the pastel packaging as well as make sure that I did not have these cartons in the back of my fridge forever. I have a sinking feeling that Peeps milk is going to haunt me.
Peeps-flavored Oreos are somehow even more terrifying. The cookies themselves are the vanilla version of Oreo wafers, not the beloved chocolate. The cream filling is a brutally neon pink. The texture is a regular Oreo. Upon first bite, you will suddenly realize Peeps-flavored Oreos are just sugar-flavored Oreos. Which, seriously, isn’t bad. People eat sugar cookies all the time.
But there is nothing even slightly healthy about eating these. They instantly coat your teeth and turn your tongue Las Vegas strip-club neon-sign pink. Not that there was anything healthy about regular Oreos, no matter how many of my vegan friends have brought them to potlucks. (Yes, Oreos are vegan. America is a fascinating, twisted nightmare.)
From here, it was all downhill. But at least I was trying Peeps in the shape of Peeps. The sour watermelon flavor is both tart and marshmallow, a combination not yet explored by humanity for a reason. Strawberry crème-dipped Peeps are a take on sexy chocolate-dipped strawberries, but in the form of small birds.
Unfortunately, my research shows that Peeps-flavored things have been around since as early as 2014. This is the America I know and love. If there is an avian-shaped holiday dessert created to celebrate the resurrection, we will make milk out of it. As they say: Let freedom peep.
And, thankfully, since this is running post-Easter, most of these delicious goodies will be on sale for the masses to consume at a discount for weeks to come. ©
This article appears in Apr 19-26, 2017.