On Monday afternoon, Ivanka Trump posted photos and videos to her Instagram story of her daughter Arabella's sixth birthday party. Instead of the standard present-opening and cake-eating moments you'd expect, social media users were presented with a head-scratching photo of the food she was serving at the party: hot dogs on skewers ... with marshmallows on top of them.
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Scenes from Arabella Kushner's 6th birthday party (with quite a balloon installation!) 🎈🎂🎁🎀 pic.twitter.com/KrMeik8rYl
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) July 17, 2017
At first, like the rest of the internet, we were very confused. (Of course, we're not really ones to talk, are we? Delish food editors have created hot dog tacos.)
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The Trump family simply cannot be trusted pic.twitter.com/1pji0kwcsY
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) July 18, 2017
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Is that marshmallow and hot dog? Rich people are weird pic.twitter.com/tmkN7fGyD0
— brian (@bribri_an) July 18, 2017
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I need to know more about this marshmallow and hot dog situation--is this a thing? has anyone tried this? #mallowdogs pic.twitter.com/RicyXrVuFf
— Whitney Ksiazek Schwartz (@SoooWhitty) July 18, 2017
But then we looked into the origin of this seemingly strange snack. Skewering a marshmallow atop a hot dog is actually very common at children's birthday parties in the Philippines. There, hot dogs are made from pork and are much redder in color. "Filipino hot dogs are like fire engine red," explained Natalia Roxas, co-founder of Filipino Kitchen. "They're saltier than the hot dogs we know in the states.
Pairing them with marshmallow came about during the American occupation in the Philippines, as G.I.'s would sell their rations to the public, Roxas explained. And it remains popular today because both ingredients are fairly cheap. "It's accessible to any socioeconomic class," she said.
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did Ivanka Trump throw her kids a Filipino birthday party??? pic.twitter.com/1hCuNN28Rt
— Matt Ortile (@ortile) July 18, 2017
"It tastes like a party," Roxas went on. "I have fond memories eating this. Our marshmallow is made sweeter, so it gives you a salty-sweet dynamic. But especially when the hotdog is fresh off the pan or grill, the marshmallow has a slight melt on it, and you get a gooey bite with your hotdog."
What's more, Roxas noted that the combination is typically paired with spaghetti (Filipino spaghetti is made with hotdogs, banana ketchup, and ground pork) and fried chicken. And, oddly enough, Trump also served spaghetti (although the plate looks like Italian-style pasta) at the party, writing "Birthday tradition — noodles for a long life" in another post to Instagram.
So now we're even more confused and uncomfortable. Neither Trump, nor her husband Jared Kushner are Filipino. So where did this culinary copy-catting come from? And why is it happening?
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