[1] The original, fruit salad version of Heavenly Hash, wrapped in heavy cream. Here’s the recipe (photo © Culinary Hill).
[2] Heavenly Hash fudge, with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and pecans. Here’s the recipe from Small Town Woman (photo © Small Town Woman).
[3] Heavenly Hash ice cream, with chocolate chips, marshmallow swirl and sliced almonds (Gemini Photo).
[4] Was the original Heavenly Hash recipe made by Sealtest‡ (Gemini Photo)?
[5] Was the person who created the chocolate form of Heavenly Hash aware of the fruit salad, or did she/he just like the name (Gemini Photo)?
[6] A plate of pork chops with a side of Heavenly Hash (Abacus Photo).
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February 2nd is National Heavenly Hash Day. But which heavenly hash might that be? (And we refer strictly to food options.)
If someone offers you Heavenly Hash, you may want to clarify:
Is it a fruit salad bound with sour cream or whipped cream, or a chocolate confection or baked good filled with marshmallows and nuts?
> The history of Heavenly Hash is below.
> So are food pairings with a side of Heavenly Hash.
HEAVENLY HASH: THE FRUIT SALAD
The fruit salad version of Heavenly Hash is a traditional Southern dish. It began as a Christmas recipe with red maraschino cherries, green grapes, pecans and other ingredients folded into whipped cream.
Over generations the recipe evolved, with everyone inventing his or her own hash (the term hash, after all, indicates a jumble or muddle of ingredients).
So today the recipe for heavenly hash essentially requires some kind of fruit—fresh, canned and/or candied—in some kind of creamy white binder.
We prefer sour cream, but have also found, mayonnaise, pudding, whipped cream, even yogurt or cottage cheese and (gasp!) Cool Whip.
Here are just a few of the combinations we perused:
Fruit cocktail and maraschino cherries
Cherry pie filling and crushed pineapple
Shredded coconut and/or bananas
Grapes and mandarin orange segments
Enhanced with marshmallows and nuts
Flavored with lime Jell-O or vanilla pudding
All folded into the binder
We personally make Heavenly Hash with fresh fruits (strawberries, bananas, pineapple, peaches) and nuts (a mix of pecans, pistachios and walnuts), folded into crème fraîche or slightly sweetened sour cream.
If the whole concept sounds odd to you, know that Heavenly Hash is very much a comfort food to its fans.
And to those of us who avoid canned fruits, the fresh fruit version is charming.
FOOD PAIRINGS FOR HEAVENLY HASH
Heavenly Hash, with its fruity, creamy profile, pairs nicely with certain savory, main courses.
Beef: grilled steak, meatloaf, pot roast
Casseroles: chicken and rice casserole, shepherd’s pie, tuna noodle casserole
Poultry: baked or roasted chicken, fried chicken, turkey
Pork: honey-glazed ham, pork chops, pork tenderloin, pulled pork
VARIATION: AMBROSIA
Ambrosia is a similar American fruit salad from the South.
While some people use the terms interchangeably, most ambrosia recipes contain coconut and pineapple, mandarin or orange sections, and miniature marshmallows.
As with Heavenly Hash, Ambrosia can also include nuts and maraschino cherries.
We dug up an old Ambrosia recipe from Emeril Lagasse that uses fresh fruits (bananas, berries [3 types], oranges, pineapple), whipped cream and toasted coconut.
And because it’s from a noted chef, there’s a chiffonade fresh mint leaves.
[6] Ambrosia salad with coconut. Here’s the recipe (photos #6 and #7 © Taste Of Home).
HEAVENLY HASH: THE CANDY, CAKE, COOKIE OR ICE CREAM
Folks liked the concept of heavenly hash so much—different ingredients in a creamy base—they ported it into other sweets called Heavenly Hash:
A type of chocolate fudge, with added marshmallows and nuts (photo #2).
A cookie version, folding miniature marshmallows, chopped nuts and coconut in a chocolate cookie dough.
A chocolate cake version, chocolate layer cake with marshmallow cream filling and chocolate icing garnished with nuts.
An ice cream version: chocolate ice cream with a marshmallow swirl, chopped nuts and chocolate chunks (photo #3—or, use the ingredients with chocolate ice cream, parfait-style).
So enjoy Heavenly Hash Day your style, with one of the ideas above; or freestyle it to create something new.
THE HISTORY OF HEAVENLY HASH
The name “Heavenly Hash” has been used for several different dishes over the years.
The original Heavenly Hash appears to have been a fruit salad or dessert salad, popular in the early-to-mid 20th century. Believed to have originated in the South, it was a sweet, creamy salad that became particularly popular at potlucks and holiday gatherings.
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Heavenly Hash recipes began appearing in American culinary “literature” (magazines, newspapers, cookbooks), featured in newspapers as early as 1887, the recipe was promoted by marshmallow manufacturers.
The Chicago Daily Tribune, “Heavenly Hash: A Delightful New Dainty” (February 8, 1887, p. 5).
The St. Louis Republican: “heavenly hash…. This is what it seems to be, and I believe it is; Oranges, bananas, lemons, apples, raisins, and pineapples are cut up into little bits hashed, you know, and worked just enough to thicken their juices, almost to jelly, and then served with a little grated nutmeg…”
By the early 1900s, the recipe gained traction using the newly available Marshmallow Fluff.
It combined marshmallows, whipped cream, and various fruits—often canned cherries, grapes, mandarin segments, and pineapple, plus nuts, plus a banana added right before serving).
In fact, the one could simply use canned fruit salad!
Many families had their own versions, passed down from Grandma, with slight variations in ingredients. Some called it 24 Hour Fruit Salad (refrigerated overnight to let the flavors meld), Ambrosia Salad, or Hawaiian Salad.
Over time, as shredded coconut became widely available, it was added to the mix. Whipped Topping/Cool Whip: The most common base, offering a stable, light texture.
The original whipped cream topping expanded to other choices: Greek yogurt, marshmallow creme (e.g. Fluff), sour cream, sweetened condensed milk, even some mayo mixed in with the creamy ingredient.
By the mid-20th century, recipes for Heavenly Hash appeared regularly in community and church cookbooks.
(the article continues below)
[7] Here’s the recipe.
Heavenly Hash Chocolate Candy
The chocolate candy version of Heavenly Hash was originally created by an unheralded individual for a New Orleans department store as a treat to pass out to shoppers. The recipe was acquired by Elmer Candy Corporation and was promptly launched into large scale production.
In 1923, Elmer’s debuted a chocolate-covered, almond, and marshmallow Easter egg, which became a staple Easter candy in the Gulf South, still made today (photo #5).
The chocolate-nut-marshmallow combination found its way into other confections: fudge, cakes, cookies, and ice cream.
Heavenly Hash Chocolate Ice Cream
In 1929, ice cream manufacturer William Dreyer of Oakland, California added cut-up walnuts and marshmallows to his chocolate ice cream, and named it Rocky Road. A variation, Heavenly Hash* (photo #3), appeared sometime later—but when, exactly, no one can determine.
It possibly emerged sometime between the 1930s-1950s, possibly inspired by the established candy flavor, but no company or individual has been definitively credited with creating it.
People recall eating Sealtest’s Heavenly Hash Ice Cream (photo #4), as far back as the 1960s and 1970s—in fact, we remember it! The brand was popular in the Midwest and Northeast.
A popular U.S. dairy brand established in 1934 by National Dairy Products Corporation, it was acquired by Kraft in 1993 and later by Unilever; the ice cream products were discontinued in the U.S. during the 1990s (the brand name remains active in Canada).
Sealtest was a major producer of Heavenly Hash ice cream and is frequently mentioned in nostalgic recollections from the 1960s-1980s, but I couldn’t find when they first introduced it
Note that savory foods have also appropriated the name. In 1906, Hanna’s Heavenly Hash, a corned-beef hash, was the feature of breakfast given at Senator Hannas’ home in Washington to President Roosevelt and other magnates. It was greatly relished by the guests, and has become famous. The recipe is in the †footnote.
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*Heavenly Hash and Rocky Road ice are both chocolate ice cream, with different textures. Heavenly Hash usually features smaller nut pieces and chocolate chips with a marshmallow swirl or cream. Rocky Road is has chunkier inclusions: whole marshmallows and large nut pieces, often with no chocolate chips.
†Hanna’s Heavenly Hash recipe: First a note about dates. While the source cited is from 1906, and Theodore Roosevelt was president 1901 through 1909, Senator Marcus Hanna passed away in office in 1904. So the date given for the breakfast, 1906, is in error. Now onto the food: Equal parts of boiled prime corned beef and potatoes are prepared. The beef is chopped as fine as possible, and the soft, mealy potatoes are cut into tiny cubes. A small onion is minced to add flavor, and the bottoms of the dishes are rubbed with a head of garlic. Another garlic head is wrapped in a piece of fat and throw into the center of the mass. The whole is then mixed thoroughly and nicely browned in a big skillet or frying pan. During this operation disks of Bermuda onions, cut so that each round shows every ring of the onion, are thrown into a deep dish of pure lard and browned delicately. When these disks are crisp they are used to garnish the edge of the platter, and the hash is served garnished with parsley or herbs and a squeeze of a lemon.
The dish was so popular, a poem appeared: “There is lobster a la Newburg, which some people think is great, And terrapins a dainty for the culture eaters plate; There are many pleasant dishes for the man who has cash, But there’s nothing that quite equals Hanna’s famous corn-beef hash” [Hanna’s Heavenly Hash, Washington Post, June 9, 1906 (p. 6)] (source: Food Timeline).
‡The actual Sealtest carton looked like this but in a rectangular form. However, we couldn’t get A.I. to make a rectangle; it insisted on this round carton.
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