Two pieces of family lore: first, when I was a baby my aunt Joan dropped me, and I landed on my head; second, one of my first-ever and favorite solid foods was peanut butter.1
While it might be interesting to document how this early blow to the head affected—or helped create—the person I am now, and why people who know me nod and go, that makes sense, when hearing about it, what I really want to do is open the jar-lid on the subject of peanut butter.
I will turn 71 in a month or so, and over the span from my diaper period to today’s lunch, there have been few days when I didn’t have at least some peanut butter. I just love the stuff, and have never grown tired of it. Yesterday I had it with lunch, then again as a late-night snack, and along the way enjoyed a couple home-baked peanut butter cookies.2
When I was a child I thought (and ate) as a child, and my PB of choice was Peter Pan smooth--probably because that was what my mother bought. Somewhere in my late twenties or early thirties I shifted allegiance to Jif Extra Crunchy, which came out in 1974. Fifteen or so years ago I changed yet again to Smuckers Natural smooth, then their chunky when that became available. This change was forced on me when I developed a severe allergy3 to palm kernel oil, the nasty shit Big PB, and big Junk Food, is putting in most of their brands. This is the same crap that keeps me from having almost any national brand of candy bar, cookie, or baked good. Think I’m kidding? Read the labels.
There was one other kind of peanut butter I ate when I was young, and maybe some of you more senior readers remember it: government surplus4 peanut butter. We never got it directly when I was growing up, we got it trade for homegrown or home-raised foodstuffs, odd truck or tractor parts, or something else surplus to us. Quart can, no fancy label featuring a fairy or kangaroo, but pretty damn tasty. That same peanut butter came by the dollop in little fluted paper cups at my high school cafeteria. I would usually collect at least a couple on the chow line. I have blocked out most of my time in high school, but this is something I can remember fondly.5
The classic application for PB is in a sandwich, most notably the rightfully legendary PB&J. The J commonly stands for jelly, but I have always found jelly to be inferior in this application. Jam is far superior, as it is thicker and more flavorful because it generally has macerated fruit in it. As are preserves, a variation on jam.
A certain PB&J subculture (to which I belong) is equally, or even more fond of PB&H, or blessed brown ambrosia and honey. That combo offers a delicious change-up when certain fruit is in season: bed freshly sliced strawberries on the honey, or crushed fresh raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries. Close that sucker up and you have a noteworthy sandwich. Oh yeah, almost forgot PB and banana. Can’t have much of that, bananas give me wicked gas.
Another favorite is PB and bacon, a wonderful amalgam of PB and one pinnacle of porky goodness. PB and cheese has its advocates. It’s odd, I will have PB and pieces of extra sharp cheddar on crackers as a snack, but this is not a mix that makes my sandwich rotation. Still, while writing this I find myself thinking: what about a grilled cheese dipped not in my usual Frank’s Hot Sauce, but peanut butter? Hmmmmm . . .
All these years eating goober paste6 has led me to a couple personal favorites that have their own peculiar attraction. They may seem odd, even disgusting at first consideration, but they are what we call ‘strangely compelling’, and like fungus, they grow on you.
If you were giving a big thumbs-up to, or at least intrigued by, PB and bacon consider this: instead of bacon, try PB and salami. Hard and Genoa salamis work well for this, cotto will also do in a pinch. Want to go even further off the beaten track? The next time you make tuna for a sandwich (well-drained solid white mixed with Miracle Whip, or mayo if you absolutely must), schmear a layer of PB on the bread before applying the tuna to your sandwich. I have no idea why this works, but it does; nor do I recall the siege of munchies that gifted me with this hand-held food innovation.
I mentioned peanut butter cookies earlier. I can only eat the home-baked version because the two kinds of what were my favorites are poisoned by palm kernel oil. The classic Nutter Butter sandwich cookie is a decent cookie. The wafer version is almost criminally tasty. I still get misty-eyed when I see a package of them.
In the extensive research7 I did for this meditation something called ‘ants on a log’ was often mentioned. This concoction, which I believe was only created to trick unsuspecting children into eating vegetables, consists of PB smeared in the trough of a celery stalk, then topped with raisins. While I applaud the drive to take PB into new realms, I still harbor reservations.
I also read about something called oranda, or Japanese Peanuts, a snack created not in Japan, but Mexico. Amazing bit of history attached to this.
Several Asian and other cuisines use peanuts and peanut butter, but I don’t live in a place where these foods can easily be acquired and sampled. The few times I’ve had a chance to try these dishes I liked them, but I’m not inclined to drive 25 miles to where I can get more. I should learn to make them myself, but haven’t yet.
I should and will mention, only in passing for fear of getting bogged down drooling, PB and chocolate. Dark chocolate is the best, of course, but PB manages to rescue milk chocolate from its inherent pallid blandness. It truly is magical.
I was saddened to learn that George Washington Carver had less to do with the invention and perfection of PB than I had been led to believe, but he remains a personal hero. Peanut paste, the precursor of PB was made and presumably enjoyed by the Aztecs and Inca. A man named M. G. Edson of Montreal patented the first machine for hot-mashing peanuts into a primitive PB (it was said to have the consistency of lard, or ointment) in 1884. There may be statues to him, and the other leading lights of PB development, but I have not seen them. In an odd turn-around there are several statues and busts of Carver, but either none or very few of the white guys.
I had PB with my lunch today, and chances are I will have some later this evening, either with crackers, or maybe I will dredge pretzels through it. I will have it tomorrow. And the day after that, and I will be happy each time I eat it, certainly more than when I recreate another something from my childhood: falling and landing on my head.
1: I count myself lucky it wasn’t squirrel. You can’t buy squirrel baby food, but my mother may well have made it. And fed it to me.
2: Munchies-driven evening snacking has helped me get my weight up from 113 to 122, just in time to start burning myself down to nothing again when the weather improves.
3: Palm oil has the same effect as an overdose of ex-lax: debilitating, dehydrating diarrhea that lasts for a couple days. Have bowel issues? Try cutting palm oil out of your diet. Remember olestra? ‘Nuff said.
4: Some of the most expensive PB comes from the US government at $1,035 per jar. Oddly enough it is not for the Pentagon, or even for eating.
5: A good summation of my high school years: I am nostalgic for cheap-ass peanut butter. Grade school was at a one-room schoolhouse, and I brought my own lunch.
6: In Holland it is called pindakaas or peanut cheese. During WWII it was sometimes called monkey butter. See below for citations.
7: Wikipedia, and a couple more sandwiches. I donate to Wikipedia yearly, and sure hope you do too.