PB+JELLY+BREAD

PB OLDIES: Peter Pan, Skippy, and Jif. PB NEWCOMERS: Trader Joe’s, O'Organics, Peanut Butter & Co., Santa Cruz Creamy, 365 Organic Spread, Justin’s Spread, Adams Natural, and Smucker's Natural

Feb 21, 2022

PEANUT BUTTER: Just where did it come from?

After this past holiday season that began with a Thanksgiving feast, progressed to a Christmas Eve feast, plus a New Year’s Eve feast, and then to at least one more this winter named, perhaps, The Last of This 2021-’22 Feast Season, a person can grow downright weary planning exuberant menus, shopping for for exotic ingredients, cooking for days on end, and way too many dirty pans and dishes. Then, it’s time to just drop on the couch. I’m so over the feasts! Lots of fun buy no more. Now, I’m only hankering for quickie meals. Translation: An easy PB&J. Give me one for breakfast. And/or lunch. And/or even a double for dinner! I can handle them for days and days in a row. Until, well when DST (daylight savings time) arrives. It’s less than 30 days off, now, until a mini-feast season. In my book, means grilling time . . . time to start having friends and family. Of course, I’ll be ready!

First, pick your fav peanut butter . . .

I’m surely not alone in my love affair with PB&J. Not unlike the hamburger, hot dog, and ice-cream cone, peanut butter was born in the late 1800’s.

Peanut butter, it should be known, contains neither butter nor nuts since peanuts are legumes. It originated as a health food of the upper class which was first created for hospitals because it was a protein-rich food that did not have to be chewed. Guests at those health care facilities popularized it. While others may have been touted as “the father of peanut butter,” a St. Louis businessman, in 1894, became the first person to produce and sell peanut butter as a snack food. But once the boll weevil devastated cotton cultivation around 1900, Southern farmers were encouraged to grow peanuts instead. A concomitant burgeoning market for peanut butter increased the demand for peanut harvests. And in a pivotal moment, peanut butter was featured at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Peter Pan peanut butter was first introduced in 1928. It became the first dominant national brand. Skippy soon came on the scene, however, to make its mark. By introducing fragments of crushed peanuts into peanut butter, “crunchy” peanut butter was invented by Skippy. It thrived and soon overtook Peter Pan remained the nation’s favorite until 1980. Jif then roared into the picture with a slogan —“choosy mothers choose Jif”— which helped build its market share from third place to first place, a position it would secure until 1981, fully more than four decades!

At first, peanut butter did not travel well. It was a new process called hydrogenation that stopped the separation of peanut oil and solids in a container and extended its shelf life. By the 1920’s, that new process led to the rise in popularity of those three — Peter Pan, Skippy, and Jif— brands, which propelled peanut butter into lunch-bucket favorites.

What’s more, peanut butter is healthy. It’s cholesterol-free. It contains more protein than any other nut. It provides about 15% of the daily protein needs of an adult. Peanut consumption offers some protection against diabetes. And one of the many advantages of peanut butter is a long shelf life —for months . . . and even longer if refrigerated.

Today, peanuts are grown commercially in 13 states across the southern U.S. What’s more, artisanal and organic brands of each are easier than ever to find today, doing for them what Starbucks did for coffee. In addition to the Old Favs, numerous natural and gourmet varieties have appeared on the scene, such as Woodstock, products of the Krema Nut Company, Koeze Cream-Nut, Trader Joe’s, O Organics, Peanut Butter & Co., MaraNatha, Santa Cruz Dark Roasted Creamy, 365 Organic Spread, Justin’s Spread, Adams Natural, and Smucker's Natural. The difference between the original three and these peanut butters is —it is said— akin to the difference between Velveeta and a luscious aged cheddar.

Quite, coincidentally, I came across an article in SAVEUR Magazine about its search this very month for the finest of all peanut butters. The article is titled, “The Best Peanut Butters Are So Good You Can Eat Them By the Spoonful.” BTW, I really believe in these “taste tests,” inasmuch as I conducted one of croissants myself for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune decades ago. For what it’s worth, I, too, happen to believe in eating peanut butter by the spoonful in between times I make myself a PB&J sammy.

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{EDITOR'S FULL-DISCLOSURE NOTE . . . . SAVEUR is a superb online magazine. It pronounces on its FaceBook page: “It is our mission to explore and celebrate the world of food, whether it’s a barbecue stand in South Carolina or a twenty-course meal in Paris; street food in Malaysia or a Tuesday-night casserole in the Midwest. . . ."}

Santa Cruz Dark Roasted Creamy Peanut Butter

As it happens their choice for “Best Overall” peanut butter in the article I discovered is a brand and style I’ve been using for months now in my own kitchen! That’s a fact I uncovered only after doing online research for this article. I swear! The magazine’s best was: Santa Cruz Dark Roasted Creamy Peanut Butter (I have liked the “no stir” version, but I’m signing up for the “creamy” on our next grocery store visit.) I’ll leave it to y’all to check out the other top peanut butters in the complete results of that article. But I can’t help but leave you with a couple tantalizing words about this top pick: “Simply the best peanut flavor and remarkable versatility in the kitchen. Maybe it’s those ‘dark roasted’ peanuts, but Santa Cruz is just the tastiest peanut butter out there that doesn’t contain any flavor boosters (and taste-bud trickers), such as salt, sugar, honey, etc. It just tastes and smells like peanuts, and something about the Santa Cruz blending process results in a peanut butter that remains better emulsified and less separated than most other natural styles. As a bonus, it’s consistently among the lower-priced organic options. Organic, almost nothing but peanuts, and reasonably priced. The slam-dunk of peanut butters.” What’s more, that is the most glorious description I’ve ever heard on the merits of a jarred food product.

JELLY: And where did it come from?

Peanut butter’s best buddy, jelly, has been around for a long time, too. In 1917, a U.S. businessman started pureeing grapes and turning them into jelly. He developed and advertised “Grapelade” —think marmalade— from Concord grapes. It was popular with America’s troops in World War I.

Flash forward to World War II. There’s a heartwarming story that came out of that time. An incident happened on Sunday morning in a northern New Jersey grocery store. A man saw an elderly woman late 80’s struggling to get a jar of jam, Bonne Maman, off a high shelf.

“That must be your favorite. Why is that?” he asked the woman.

“I am a Holocaust survivor,” she said. “During the war, the family that owns the company hid my family in Paris.” The woman in the grocery store had self-identified herself as “bubbe” —Yiddish for “grandmother.”

“It was a beautiful moment,” the man said. “When she told the story, it’s one of these things where your heart stops for a moment. That’s because it was totally unexpected.”

Quite by surprise, Bonne Maman is also my favorite jam! I’ve been buying it for years, because of its rich flavors but also because of the jar’s red gingham lids. I’ve never known the brand name. Tens of thousands of people have apparently shared that story, so the legend says. It has prompted countless people to vow to buy Bonne Maman brand jam, sometime,.

“Please don’t make me fact check the Bonne Maman story,” one genealogy-sleuthing online journalist is reported to have said. “Can’t it be like Santa Claus?

THE PB&J SAMMY: Where did it come from?

Two parts down, one to go. It’s well known the Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich. He wanted to eat his meal with one hand during a 24-hour gambling event and instructed his servant to put the meat for his meal between two slices of bread. But what many may not know, is how an American classic sandwich—the iconic peanut butter and jelly sandwich—came to be. Furthermore, why wasn’t it a boloney with mustard-mayo-or ketchup, or an egg salad, or a tuna salad sandwich? The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich, who invented the PB&J?

In 1901, the first PB&J sandwich recipe appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics written by Julia Davis Chandler. She was said to use currant, maybe, crab-apple jelly and called the combination delicious.

The significance of the bread component in the PB&J sandwich is the invention of pre-sliced bread machine in the early 1900’s. The bread slicer was invented but bakers were not interested in it because they thought no one would want their bread pre-sliced. Its inventor kept refining his invention and changing things until it was ready to use in bakeries. The inventor advertised the machine as “the greatest step forward in baking since bread was wrapped.” Later, the slogan evolved into “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Jumping forward, PB&J sandwiches were on the U.S. Military ration menus in World War II. Peanut butter was a high-protein, shelf-stable ingredient by then and easily portable on long military marches. Grapelade had already been invented and it added a sweetness to the sandwich. With pre-sliced bread so easy to use, the natural inclination was to combine these three items, and before long the good ol’ PB&J was a part of the American soldier’s life.

Still, PB&J sandwiches were a relatively exclusive food. Its popularity among the masses was yet to come. As Grapelade and pre-sliced bread became popular, another breakthrough happened with peanut butter—commercial brands found a way to create creamier peanut butter that didn’t stick to the roof of the mouth so easily. Sliced bread proliferated. Soon people were looking for spreads to use with this newfound wonder food. And during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, many many families discovered peanut butter provided a satisfying, high protein, less expensive meal.

But the major event that took the peanut butter and jelly sandwich over the top in popularity was WWII. When soldiers returned home, peanut butter and jelly sales soared. Kids loved it. It tasted great. Parents loved how easy it was to make and how kids could make it themselves. Many families and college students on a budget relied on PB&J sandwiches. The only invention that did more than hydrogenation to cement peanut butter in the mouths of U.S.’s youth was that sliced bread. It made it easy for kids to construct their own PB&Js.

These days, it’s understood the average kid eats some 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before graduating from high school. Assuming that average child doesn’t begin until age 3 or so, that’s one every couple days for 12 years —if you’re into PB&J sandwich math. If that was my experience, perhaps my love of PB&J sandwiches had a similar genesis.

So, maybe you have children or grandchildren under the age of 17. Then this issue of Vintage Morels is something to chew on.

[VINTAGE MORELS] adventures with a home cook

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