"How delicious, eating goober peas"
October 29, 2022 11:49 AM   Subscribe

Ninety percent of US households consume peanut butter and the National Peanut board estimates that 60% of Americans prefer smooth peanut butter.

Peanut butter in the US started out in the late 1800s as peanut paste, roasted and ground with salt. Its first consumers were generally enslaved people. Civil War soldiers are said to have eaten "peanut porridge." Originally peanut butter was an upper class food, prized for its health values and high caloric content. Stabilized peanut butter, made with hydrogenation, didn't come to prominence until the 1920s. It's surprising, then, that "chunky" peanut butter (with actual peanut pieces, not just coarsely ground) wasn't a consumer product until 1935, patented by Joseph Rosefield who created the Skippy brand of peanut butter after a falling out with the Peter Pan people.

The National Peanut Festival is next week in Dothan, Alabama.

Perhaps we can all agree that peanut butter is the best (unless you're so allergic that it will kill you)? Further reading, and more further reading.
posted by jessamyn (168 comments total) 53 users marked this as a favorite
 
I just sat down to peruse the blue with delicious peanut butter (crunchy) and marmalade on pumpernickel toast, and lo, the top post is relevant to my interests... coincidence? I think not.

But I also recently discovered that I vastly prefer the supermarket brand (Kroeger) over Skippy, as it's less sweet and half the price. Woo hoo!
posted by carmicha at 11:53 AM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


The peanut board says that in the US you don't have to worry about aflatoxin in your peanut butter.

I can't find a source, but nearly 20 years ago, I was told that peanuts were the primary source of protein for a billion people.
posted by aniola at 11:59 AM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


My kid has a peanut allergy, which we found out about when she was maybe three or four, so many years ago we just stopped having peanut products in the house. A couple of years ago though, I realized that she's old enough (she's now 20) to not accidentally get into the peanut butter. So I started buying peanut butter.

OH MY GOD I MISSED PEANUT BUTTER SO MUCH.

I'm careful with it, I make sure I don't smudge it on anything and I clean the knife off before I put it in the dishwasher, but more nights than I care to admit I am delightedly snacking on peanut butter on saltines, which is probably one of the all time great food combinations.

I am a smooth peanut butter guy. Even the thought of little bits of peanuts in my peanut butter gives me the willies.
posted by bondcliff at 12:10 PM on October 29, 2022 [33 favorites]


Official U.S. Government Standard Peanut Butter, yours for just $1,069.00 for three jars of 170g each.
posted by Etrigan at 12:14 PM on October 29, 2022 [15 favorites]


When I was a preschool toddler kid type wandering around the woods and neighbors yards and such... This old lady across the street used to snag me for thirty minutes or so and would make a batch the "impossible three ingredient peanut butter cookies". All third granny like. Peanut butter, Sugar, Egg. Mix, ball, press with fork. Bake. Cookies!!!!!!!!
posted by zengargoyle at 12:15 PM on October 29, 2022 [12 favorites]


60% of Americans can be wrong
posted by Going To Maine at 12:19 PM on October 29, 2022 [119 favorites]


Just bought a jar of smooth Skippy because Target didn't have chunky, and I can recommend peanut butter and sliced tomato sandwiches. Peanut butter and bacon is also wonderful.

I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for much of my early childhood lunches because my mother had no imagination and it was the 1950s.

As a teacher, I can tell you it's really hard to keep a school peanut free even when you think you've explained to parents that the allergy can kill you. Peanuts seem so innocuous, and allergies are harder to comprehend than COVID for some people.
posted by Peach at 12:20 PM on October 29, 2022 [12 favorites]


I’m annoyed when large numbers are presented without context ( obligatory XKCD): 1 billion pounds of peanut butter per year is over an Olympic swimming pool every other day, or roughly 4 12oz jars per person per year (sounds about right for me).

Somewhat related, but I’ve frequently seen it repeated that Americans eat 50 B burgers each year, which still strikes me as ludicrous and I’ve never quite been able to track down the original source. Assuming the distribution is normal and my personal ~burger / month average is say one and a half standard deviations below the mean, that implies one in 15 people eat like a burger every day. I just can’t buy it
posted by hoyle at 12:26 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Crunchy, with apple slices on top.
posted by mumimor at 12:29 PM on October 29, 2022 [10 favorites]


Official U.S. Government Standard Peanut Butter, yours for just $1,069.00 for three jars of 170g each.

Ok, when I read this I had to know why it’s so expensive. Turns out everything is that expensive. And the reason is really interesting. TL;DR: They are “standard reference materials, or SRMs, available to scientists, governmental regulatory agencies and manufacturers around the world.”

The things you learn on the internet.
posted by trigger at 12:33 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Buy non-hydrogenated PB. Take it home. Flip it over so the oil on top is now on the bottom. Wait a day. Then stir and keep in the fridge. It stays spreadable and you’ll never miss the added sugar in the other stuff.
posted by kerf at 12:35 PM on October 29, 2022 [49 favorites]


My mom tried to feed us healthy food when we were kids so peanut butter on rice cakes was a common afternoon snack. But her family was English and the automatic impulse to butter something before topping it would kick in, so they were actually butter and peanut butter rice cakes. The nutty savory salty peanut butter contrasting with little pockets of cold creamy butter in the nooks and crannies of the rice cakes was glorious.
posted by cali at 12:39 PM on October 29, 2022 [14 favorites]


Crunchy peanut butter and thinly sliced salami sandwiches are why I get up in the morning. Don’t forget to butter both sides first.
posted by repoman at 12:43 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Take an apple (Fuji or Granny Smith is best) and a 8-10" chef's knife and a jar of Jif smooth (dammit). Hold the apple in one hand and whack the knife down to almost the core, rotate the apple a bit and whack the knife again at a bit of an angle to carve out a slice. Bite out the core-y part, use the knife in the jar of peanut butter to layer up the slice. Eat. Rotate apple again, whack but straight on now, twist the blade to break out a new slice. Repeat peanut butter application and eating. Repeat until there is no apple left. Wipe knife blade across remaining core to remove excess peanut butter. (Advanced, lick the blade appropriately to not slice open your tongue.) Toss the core, wash off the knife. Do it again tomorrow.
posted by zengargoyle at 12:46 PM on October 29, 2022 [6 favorites]


No joke, I was looking at this gigantic peanut butter cup recipe just before clicking over here.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 12:55 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


I used to despise crunchy peanut butter but, sometime in the last two decades, have come to much prefer crunchy.

For smooth, though, I go with Costco's Kirkland peanut butter and use a cordless drill with a single old hand mixer beater to really stir it well. Then refrigerate, of course.
posted by bz at 1:01 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


…I can recommend peanut butter and sliced tomato sandwiches. Peanut butter and bacon is also wonderful.

Way back in my childhood (ca. 1972) my mother got a recipe for BLTs out of a magazine (perhaps Southern Living?) that included peanut butter. People think it sounds strange; until they try it. Sounds like you are one step away from that delicious combo!

And chunky peanut butter is best! Obviously it’s only for that minority of us with more refined tastes!
posted by TedW at 1:01 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


I love peanut butter so much. My brand is generally Smucker’s Natural Chunky. The “turn it upside down” trick is a life changer.

PB goes good with many, many things but today my favorite was: fresh hot waffle, slather with peanut butter, drizzle of honey, sprinkle granola, eat it out of hand like a slice of pizza.
posted by bgribble at 1:03 PM on October 29, 2022 [8 favorites]


Peanut butter and bacon is also wonderful.

Eager to test this potentially life changing piece of information.
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:04 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Crunchy everything, so that naturally includes peanut butter, as well. But I never eat the stuff, only have the bottle handy should I choose to bake a batch of peanut butter cookies.

I can recommend peanut butter and sliced tomato sandwiches.

Wow, my dad's favorite (but a tough sell to the rest of his family).
posted by Rash at 1:06 PM on October 29, 2022


Peanut butter and bacon is also wonderful.

Eager to test this potentially life changing piece of information.


Next step: on a hamburger. Place near me used to have a money-back guarantee on it.
posted by LionIndex at 1:06 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm (temporarily) down in an area of Florida that was directly hit by Hurricane Ian and yesterday I was working with two guys all morning hauling debris. Around noon I realized that there was nothing around for lunch.

But there are a fleet of organizations in the area offering free meals and water to whoever needs them. So I drove down to the nearby relief station and all they had were stacks of pre-made PBJ sandwiches and some tangerines. The sandwiches were in Ziploc bags and some volunteer had written "You are loved!" with a smiley face on each one. So I grabbed 1/2 dozen of each and brought them back.

My kid's in college now and so it's been a while since "incidental" peanut butter sandwiches were around. Proust's madeleines had nothing on these motherfuckers! I took my first bite and I'll be goddamned if it didn't just transport me, Dr. Who style, back to those days as a kid when you were on a field trip and you had PBJ sandwiches and oranges for lunch. Nothing could have been better at that moment.

The three of us just sat around munching these things down in silence as they gave us a much needed sugar boost for the next few hours of physical labor.

Oh, and whoever made them used smooth peanut butter, but that's OK, noone's perfect! ;)
posted by jeremias at 1:08 PM on October 29, 2022 [26 favorites]


I love peanut butter! But I really really really don't love peanut butter cups, peanut butter cookies and what not. I've never figured out why.

Chunky is better than smooth. Non-hydrogenated chunky is better. Non-hydrogenated with honey on top is to die for.

I was recently surprised by how much more deliciouser Planters Peanut Butter was over other peanut butters.
posted by ashbury at 1:09 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


ahem: the only correct peanut butter sandwich has banana slices, some marshmallow fluff or honey as a sweetener, and comes on bleach-white fortified bread with the crusts cut off. serve next to an ice-cold tumbler of 2% milk.
posted by logicpunk at 1:10 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


I haven't made Nava Atlas's peanut-butter pasta in a while. I should. It's tasty.
posted by humbug at 1:12 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


My dad brown-bagged his lunches, and they were almost always a peanut butter (smooth) and mayonnaise sandwich. Don’t knock it ‘till you try it. Seriously.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:13 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Just noticed this post's title. Goober Peas are peanuts, if you weren't aware. It's a song from the Civil War, here performed by Burl Ives and Johnny Cash.
posted by Rash at 1:16 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


I love peanut butter! But I really really really don't love peanut butter cups, peanut butter cookies and what not. I've never figured out why.

I’ve always felt the peanut butter in things like Reese’s cups was oddly textured. Definitely not smooth and creamy. Kind of dry-ish. In any case, not tasty.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:17 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Here's the secret to the best PB&J: strawberry or apricot jam, and crushed red pepper flakes.

You might have to experiment a few times to find out how much red pepper is right for you, but when you get all the proportions just right, it's magic.

I also like to go three slices of bread (with more of the other ingredients to balance it out, ofc). Experiments I did with toasting the middle bread seemed promising, but my cheapo toaster broke and I haven't got around to replacing it.
posted by rifflesby at 1:19 PM on October 29, 2022 [9 favorites]


A peanut butter sandwich on toast, with marshmallow cream, has often been the best possible meal for me. Butter the toast first. I long for it this moment.

In northeast Iowa, and in Waterloo specifically, a peanut butter sandwich is often paired with a bowl of chili. A frequent school lunch! (I grew up in southeast Iowa and consider this wrong. With chili, we had grilled cheese.)

Also, in Iowa, it’s apparently against the law to talk about peanuts without mentioning George Washington Carver.
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:20 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


A note re: Peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.
Not UK rasher bacon, or Canadian pea meal bacon, but US smoked & salted 'streaky' bacon. Cooked (burned) until it shatters/crumbles under fork pressure.

Served on hot toast, which causes the PB to melt and create a layered crunch/goosh/crunch texture experience.
Not really a light snack; better for letting your body rejoice in an orgy of Proteins! Fats! Salt! Hooray! as a recovery meal. If you want to feel healthy, alternate bites of banana with bites of sandwich.
posted by bartleby at 1:28 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Peanut butter on a hamburger - delish

Peanut butter Chicken (US Chinese food style with sweetened peanut butter sauce) also delish

Hot (spicy) peanut butter on anything - just add your dried pepper of choice, DELISH
posted by djseafood at 1:30 PM on October 29, 2022


Lucille Bluth: It's one jar of peanut butter, Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?

NIST: Official U.S. Government Standard Peanut Butter, yours for just $1,069.00 for three jars of 170g each.
posted by fedward at 1:33 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Peanut butter and pickled jalapeños! Do try it. On as robust and dark bread as is available. Serve with vegetable juice or black coffee.
I used to bring tubs of non-hydrogenated PB back to Sweden from the states, and even considered investing in a mill at one point. But over the last ten years quality Dutch peanut butter is finding it's way here. Maybe the Indonesian influence in Holland has something to do with Dutch peanut butter appreciation? Makes me glad any way.
posted by St. Oops at 1:34 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Chunky topped with spicy zhoug sauce. O. M. G.
posted by ClingClang at 1:34 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


West African Groundnut stew: chicken beef onions bell-peppers tomatoes and a cup of peanut butter . . . pref cooked by my sainted departed MiL who grew up in Kano, Nigeria - you'll need a bib, though.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:34 PM on October 29, 2022 [14 favorites]


Oh, good, I’m not too late to make this contribution:

The show “The Bear” but the restaurant only serves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water

(SLTwitter)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:36 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


I am that one guy who does not like peanut butter.
posted by briank at 1:36 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Man, do I hate hate hate all natural peanut butter. Nasty paste. That is all my mother fed me as a kid once the grocery store near our house got a peanut butter grinding machine. Peanuts went in the top, nasty peanu paste came out the bottom.

I love hydrogenated, salted, sweetened crunchy factory processed peanut butter though. All you all natural “just flip it over and mix the oil” people are wrong. I did miss the added stuff, a lot.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:37 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


One of my favourite breakfasts is a toasted English muffin, buttered, with chunky peanut butter and slices of good sharp cheddar on it, and best if the cheddar is aged enough to have cheese crystals in it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:42 PM on October 29, 2022 [6 favorites]


I bet there's already a comment saying that 60% of Americans are wrong I said to myself as I opened this thread, and lo and behold I'm not disappointed.

I like smooth myself but peanut butter is pretty awesome in general IMHO. I should make some peanut butter cookies sometime soon, been a while since I last did that.
posted by Aleyn at 1:44 PM on October 29, 2022


I love peanuts (especially the dry roasted kind) almost as much as I love cashews (my personal favorite), but I've always been kind of an outlier in that I don't really like peanut butter on its own. I've always blamed this on having people try to force it on me on snacks and sandwiches as a kid (in my opinion, the worst way to eat peanut butter is on sliced soft bread . . . it's a texture thing). I always desperately wanted to like peanut butter more because everyone else liked it so much and I'd already alienated childhood friends with similarly unpopular positions on popcorn, milk, soft serve ice cream, and marshmallows. I always ate it when offered because I believed it was polite, but alas, never grew into the taste.

On the other hand, I love peanut butter in chocolate, in spicy cucumber salad, and as an ingredient in various savory dishes.
posted by thivaia at 1:44 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


peanut butter, raw honey, and salted butter on the heel of wheat bread.
posted by clavdivs at 1:55 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


Next step: on a hamburger. Place near me used to have a money-back guarantee on it.

taquito boyfriend was craving grass-fed burgers the other day so we went to the hipster brewpub down the street & he got one with peanut butter, bacon, & dragonfruit jam... it was really good but the burger felt kinda superfluous at that point
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:57 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Equal parts peanut butter and sweet white or red miso plus enough rice vinegar to make it smooth is a delightful savory dip for carrots, cucumbers, daikon slices, &c.
posted by Jesse the K at 2:10 PM on October 29, 2022 [6 favorites]




I've lived for a while on peanut butter (chunky, you smooth brained heathens! :) ) with soy and sriracha on toast. People around me think I'm weird but I point out that it's kinda a half ass nod to peanut sauce so leave me be.

And I've gotten the impression that outside of the US, most other countries consider our undying devotion to peanut butter to be weird.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:16 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


When I was a poor graduate student at the UW, there was a cafe about 2 blocks from campus that served open faced peanut butter sandwiches that were half a jar of Adams crunchy peanut butter (8 oz., in other words) on thick heavy bread with a giant wad of jam - I remember strawberry and apricot - on the side.

For 50 cents.

I ate at least 7 of those a week, sometimes two in a sitting, though it was kind of embarrassing when the server would roll their eyes at the second order. I never saw anybody try to pick one up off the plate; it was strictly a knife and fork affair.
posted by jamjam at 2:18 PM on October 29, 2022 [8 favorites]


All you need is a spoon and a glass of milk . . . .
posted by pt68 at 2:18 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciates an undercoat of actual butter underneath peanut butter on toast (or on english muffins or bagels or saltines or whatever). Chunky, salted, non-hydrogenated please. Smooth is ok in a pinch.

And since I buy the big jars, this knife has been a gamechanger. It's huge and gets all the bits out from the bottom curves and the under-rim, and it's stiff enough, but not too bulky, so you can stir in all the oil effectively.
posted by janell at 2:21 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Which UW, jamjam? The Last Exit near the University of Washington had cheap-and-filling PB sammiches, on doorstop wedges of seedy bread, with an orange quarter and a tuft of parsley on the side.
posted by clew at 2:24 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I grew up with UK style peanut butter, which is greyish paste and unlovely. North American peanut butter is better, but I can't be doing with the sweet stuff.

Almond butter, though: crunchy, on reduced-salt Triscuit, with a sliver of sharp cheddar ... om nom nom
posted by scruss at 2:30 PM on October 29, 2022


That one, clew. No orange quarter or parsley in my era.

I have to admit I was wondering whether there would be a parallel in Madison. More than once I've been talking to someone about grad school experiences for several minutes before one of us realizes the other went to the other school.
posted by jamjam at 2:31 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm a US transplant to Australia, and for some reason, peanuts in Australia--and therefore also peanut butter--are distinctly less peanutty. I'd describe the Australian peanut taste as wan, eg, Snickers bars are so boring and not worth the bother. When I visit family in the US, I am always struck by how much more intensely peanutty everything with peanuts tastes. American peanut butter has this deep, unctuous, roasty flavor rush. It's amazing.
posted by amusebuche at 2:34 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


This seems like such a contentious topic for Metafilter. Is it possible to allow open debate on this subject?
posted by BYiro at 2:36 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Just wanted to say that if you have a food processor and you haven't tried to make your own peanut butter, you are missing out. I also recommend roasting some peanuts for your homemade peanut butter. One of my favourite things I've eaten is a sandwich with whole wheat bread I made, jam I made, and peanut butter I made. It was so, so good.
posted by synecdoche at 2:40 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


Jif peanut butter products were recalled this summer. Until this event, I had never suspected that no other peanut butter brand would suffice for me. I bought 3 jars the first time I saw it back in stock.
posted by beaning at 2:43 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


The New Yorker had another piece on peanut butter just recently, The Possibilities of the Peanut, that I really enjoyed. It also added a nice bit of color around the popularization of peanuts in the South as a way to recover after cotton farming:
Born into slavery in Missouri around 1864, Carver studied at Iowa State University and then taught at the Tuskegee Institute, where he would spend much of the rest of his life learning to repair the environmental damage wrought by intensive cotton farming. He found that sweet potatoes and peanuts could replenish the depleted Southern soils, as both are nitrogen-fixing plants. By growing and regularly rotating these crops, farmers could begin to bring life back to the land.
But where Carver’s genius really shone wasn’t so much as an inventor but as a thrifter par excellence. Farmers who sowed their fields with peanuts found their soils enriched, sure, but were left with more peanuts than they knew what to do with. Enter Carver and his 1916 missive, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human Consumption,” which advises readers on everything from the best soil type for growing peanuts with a light-colored shell to the merits of peanut-plant hay. Carver supplies recipes for peanut candies, cakes, wafers, fudge, ice cream, cookies, and bread, as well as peanut omelettes, macaroni and cheese, salad, cream cheese, and no fewer than five distinct ways to make peanut soup. Here, a cook will find every dish that can be improved with a handful of peanuts, and many more that can’t. Four years after the bulletin’s publication at an industry convention, Carver exhibited a hundred and forty-five novel uses for peanuts and their by-products in a talk that he titled, understating things somewhat, “The Possibilities of the Peanut.”
Abusing the edit window: do read the rest of the article and the recipe at the end sounds amazing.
posted by pulposus at 2:46 PM on October 29, 2022 [10 favorites]


My Work is That of Conservation, a biography of Carver; so much more than the peanuts, though the peanuts were important.
posted by clew at 2:51 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


"Which UW, jamjam? The Last Exit near the University of Washington …"

It's got to be the Last Exit. Alas, first moved and now gone but not forgotten.
posted by bz at 2:54 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Crunchy peanut butter and strong cheddar on toast, melted under the grill (broiler), topped with a dollop of Chinese chili / shallot crisp with some chopped gherkins mixed through.

The perfect late night few-too-many snack... so many dimensions of fat and funk and tang and heat and crunch and ooze playing off each other...
posted by protorp at 3:08 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


A peanut butter sandwich on toast, with marshmallow cream

The fluffernutter!

I made this post as a sponsored post but I am also a huge peanut butter fan. Like I must be 40% peanut butter by weight (if not by volume) because I eat it so much. I've been having a bit of a dental saga that means I haven't been able to eat really crunchy stuff for a while now and crunchy was my JAM so I just stopped eating peanut butter for a while just because I Could Not Imagine but after a while I realized I really needed something soft and easy to eat for breakfasts and so in addition to sometimes-oatmeal, I also have PB&J and milk in my breakfast rotation. And it's bearable with smooth peanut butter. i was surprised but happy. I also like peanut butter and banana, the aforementioned fluffernutter, and peanut butter and bacon has always been a fave.

And I love ALL the peanut butter associated things: the cookies, the ground nut stew, the peanut butter cups, the peanut butter crackers you can buy at the gas station. If there was a peanut butter soda (OH GOD I JUST GOOGLED, forget it)
posted by jessamyn at 3:17 PM on October 29, 2022 [16 favorites]


Aw, thanks for the link, bz , such nostalgia.

The equivalent coffeehouse in Santa Cruz lasted into this millennium but is also gone.
posted by clew at 3:23 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Crunchy, with apple slices on top.

jquinby, his mouth wide
posted by jquinby at 3:56 PM on October 29, 2022 [16 favorites]


I'm the fkn Spiders Georg of peanut butter. I eat just inordinately huge quantities of the stuff. I put it in my instant noodles. I put it in my oatmeal. Spread on apple slices. Slathered on a plain Hershey bar. I really can think of few foods I didn't consider improved with the judicious application of peanut butter.
posted by potrzebie at 3:58 PM on October 29, 2022 [9 favorites]


peanut butter sandwich on toast….

So appealing. But the challenge is that warm toast + PB = runny mess. And waiting for the toast to cool seems to defeat the purpose.

Tips? Comments?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:58 PM on October 29, 2022


The best peanut butters:
1) Trader Joe's Salted Organic (no clue why but it is decidedly tastier than the non-organic equivalent)
2) Kirkland Signature (smooth)
3) CBs Nuts Creamunchy (salted) - this is as close to crunchy as I'm willing to go.

All have peanuts and salt as the only ingredients.

My go to snack is to just eat PB by the spoonful so I've tried basically everything out there. Trust me.

Carrots dipped in peanut butter are also delicious. Way better than celery.
posted by rouftop at 4:02 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Also, I hate peanut butter cookies and Reese's cups/pieces. I've always felt like being unable to enjoy those things is a character flaw somehow....

But I do love dipping chocolate into good peanut butter directly.
posted by rouftop at 4:06 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


that implies one in 15 people eat like a burger every day. I just can’t buy it

Come to my house.
posted by tzikeh at 4:07 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


After almost 23 years in the US I still find peanut butter just disgusting. Also, how can it be considered to be “food” as opposed to candy, dessert treat or some other such abomination.
posted by zeikka at 4:09 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


peanut butter sandwich on toast….

So appealing. But the challenge is that warm toast + PB = runny mess. And waiting for the toast to cool seems to defeat the purpose.

Tips? Comments?


I guess the issue is that you see "runny mess" as a problem rather than a delight?
posted by hydropsyche at 4:11 PM on October 29, 2022 [10 favorites]


I did a graduate program in England about 20 years and all the Europeans did not understand peanut butter until my mother sent me a jar of creamy Jif. They all raved.

She also sent a Hershey’s bar, which did not go over as well.
posted by rhymedirective at 4:46 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Natural peanut butter. Chunky. But it needs needs NEEDS salt. Unsalted peanut butter is the work of Satan and probably why so many people think they hate the real stuff.

Oh and during the worst of the pandemic there were totally "I Just Can't Today" meals of a giant spoonful of peanut butter and a small glass of milk.
posted by aspo at 4:51 PM on October 29, 2022 [8 favorites]


how can it be considered to be “food” as opposed to candy

The more natural stuff doesn't have sugar, it's just protein and fats. Like, it's fine if you don't like it for your own reasons, but there are a lot of different kinds.

I guess the issue is that you see "runny mess" as a problem rather than a delight?

Yep, use a little less PB so it's maybe not SO gloopy but then just enjoy the melty goodness.
posted by jessamyn at 4:53 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Peanut butter is also delicious on brownies, in oatmeal (so much more filling) and ice cream, or spread on a cook-from-frozen paratha with some hot sauce.
posted by sepviva at 4:55 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just skimmed this whole thing to check for Teddie Peanut Butter. It’s the best! I get Super Chunky in the glass jars. Dip apple slices or celery sticks in it. Spread on top of a whole wheat English muffin. This is the way.
posted by chocotaco at 5:19 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


Ah, legumes ground to a slime.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:31 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Chunky peanut butter, hot chunky salsa, and crisp tortilla chips in a sandwich made of toasted bread
. Slices of banana optional. Raisins for the adventurous.
posted by allium cepa at 5:47 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


When I was a kid, we would eat peanut butter, mayo and onion sandwiches. As memory serves, it was pretty good but it has been three plus decades so I should test that memory.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:51 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


We just returned from a trip to Korea, and as an avid lover of strange-to-me snacks I couldn’t resist the opportunity to purchase a package of Peanut Butter (dried) Squid on a late night convenience store run (yes, alcohol was involved, why do you ask?). I haven’t yet found the opportunity to open it and frankly don’t have any idea what to expect. It occurred to me after purchasing that I’m not even sure whether peanut modifies “butter squid” or whether peanut butter is used as a single phrase in the description, so many surprises await.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:20 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm the fkn Spiders Georg of peanut butter

I'm sure your PB consumption skills are first rate, but they will be nothing compared to someone I once knew called Stephen.

Stephen lived on a very remote island, and even in summer supplies might not make it into harbour every day. Stephen was an incredibly active young man, leading groups of volunteers helping to rebuild agricultural features on the island (it's a world heritage site). His idea of a balanced breakfast was to stick his hand into a 20 kg catering tub of peanut butter, pull out a fistful and proceed to lick it off. It was quite a sight to behold. He did spent most of the day rebuilding field walls and lifting sheep, so he needed all the energy. Apparently he went through a couple of tubs per season. Even when he went to university back on the mainland, he'd always have a catering bucket of peanut butter handy.
posted by scruss at 6:30 PM on October 29, 2022 [9 favorites]


Every so often I accidentally buy a jar of creamy peanut butter by accident, and at one point I realized I can go back and buy a thing of peanuts and then just put them in my sandwich with the peanut butter and it's at least as good. (It's not so good that I go out of my way to do it that way though).

Also: I like using the creamy-or-chunky axis to describe loads of other things than peanut butter. "What was traffic like?" "What kind of music do you feel like listening to?" "How was the weather on your trip?"
posted by aubilenon at 6:42 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


One of the many great things about peanut butter is that it's super cheap while tasting great. Unfortunately, it's banned in schools, so we have to substitute sunbutter, which is nowhere near as nice, and which costs literally five times as much. I don't mind spending money for quality -- the Georgia Grinders hazelnut butter is amazing, but of course also banned.

I remember one of the first things that I learned to make as a grown up was a "satay" made with peanut butter, soy sauce, curry powder and ketchup. Maybe there was, like powdered ginger and garlic in it? Needless to say, not authentic. These days I use a spice paste with galangal, garlic, lemongrass, hot pepper, and shallots, made fresh and fried. Also, lime juice. But still peanut butter and soy sauce.
posted by novalis_dt at 6:47 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Peter Pan is the one true PB but it is not available in Canada. The No Name brand is the best of the remaining options. Kraft is the worst, though.

I eat a lot of peanuts, and in the house usually have smooth and crunchy regular PB on rotation, smooth and crunchy "natural" pb also on rotation, some home-ground pb of varying flavours (sometimes a bit of maple, or hot sauce, or cocoa powder, and sugar), plus the snacking "dry roasted" peanuts.

My recipe for pb cookies is like this: 500g of peanuts, 250g of sugar, pinch of salt in a food processor, grind until a paste forms, remove to a bowl, mix in 2 raw eggs, then scoop, flatten and bake.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:02 PM on October 29, 2022 [6 favorites]


Peanut butter and cheese is really good, too, a great "keeps you from snacking too much" snack.
I'll throw peanuts or peanut butter or both into my curries, to save a bit on the cost of meat.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:04 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


there are four types of peanuts: runner, virginia, spanish and valencia. most peanut butter is made from runners, but you can find it made from the other types as well. strangely, trader joes often has peanut butter from several varieties - read the jars carefully!
posted by bruceo at 7:06 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Winco foods, an employee owned big box grocer, has nut grinders. You can grind plain salted peanut butter, (which I buy a pound a month of,) or roasted, sweetened, with other additives; or almond butter, maybe cashew butter. I have one Daves multigrain toast with rough ground peanut butted, in summer, with Armenian cucumbers and seasoned salt, sometimes with sun dried tomatoes, often with fresh fuji apples, in the late summer with peaches, sometimes strawberries. It is my go to breakfast.
posted by Oyéah at 7:17 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Jif peanut butter products were recalled this summer.

Ah that explains why I had to buy a double pack of Skippy's at my local Costco in August. I'm a 30+ year JIF gal; this is the biggest brand shift I've ever done!
posted by basalganglia at 7:19 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]



Man, do I hate hate hate all natural peanut butter. Nasty paste. That is all my mother fed me as a kid once the grocery store near our house got a peanut butter grinding machine. Peanuts went in the top, nasty peanu paste came out the bottom.

Our Whole Foods used to fill the grinder with honey roasted peanuts, and that peanut butter was incredibly good. Sweet, salty, still all-natural.

Peanut butter toast with Fly By Jing's chili crisp on top is an amazing melty umami mess. Sometimes I add thin sliced cucumber if we have one.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:20 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Smooth on a Ritz, make a small divot, add a few drops of Tabasco and eat in one bite...
posted by jim in austin at 7:31 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Forget crunchy vs. smooth (it's smooth for me). What about the Skippy vs. Jif debate (vs. Teddy Bear)?

Also for whatever reason (aka I have problems), there are 6 unopened jars of peanut butter right now in my cupboard. I kept forgetting that we had some and just. kept. buying it. Because we eat so. much. peanut butter.
posted by Toddles at 7:35 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


60% of Americans can be wrong

Crunchy gives needed texture to break up the liquid goo that is peanut butter.

For years, I used to introduce process/instruction writing to my students in Japan by repurposing a communication lesson taught at a summer camp one year: the instructor stands before the group, says, "watch what I do. Take notes. Be reading to explain all the steps back at the end." Then, they make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, all movements clear, broad, and easy to see.

You give groups in the class a couple minutes to write (has to be written, for reasons) out the steps. Each group gets a chance to read out their steps, and the instructor follows those steps to the letter.

"First," a group will say, "put the peanut butter on the bread" and you pick up the jar of peanut butter and set it directly on the loaf of bread. The sounds of absolute despair are almost as delicious as the peanut butter itself. The whole point, of course, is getting the students to understand that the reader only has the text in front of them, and we need to find that sweet spot between knowing what we can expect the reader to understand, and knowing what we need to spell out.

One of the things I always loved about doing this lesson is that the PB&J is utterly foreign to Japan. Jelly exists. Weird, unlovable peanut "paste" exists here, but the two are never put together. The moment I lift up the piece of bread with the peanut butter, and the piece of bread with the jelly, and press them together is almost always received with abject horror, with anguish, with utter disbelief. At the end of the class, I would always cut up the sandwiches that had been made, and let the students have at them, but more than a few would just nope right the hell out of it, weirded out by the whole thing.

The lesson has been replaced, both because of allergies and corona, but damn, I loved that lesson.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:41 PM on October 29, 2022 [25 favorites]


Also, since I'm not seeing it anywhere else: the standard egg roll from US Chinese food? Peanut butter. I've tried to recreate them, since you just can't find them anywhere else. I'd heard that they had peanut butter, but I figured that had to be a myth. We tried several different filling mixtures, but the only one that tasted anywhere close was one that had a healthy dollop of peanut butter in it.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:44 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


The year I lived in Germany I could only get the natural stuff. I ate a lot of it, but I was happy to come home again.

I became brand agnostic when Peter Pan had its recall in the mid 2000s. Even once it was finally available again the local supermarket didn’t have Extra Crunchy for whatever reason. Now I just buy whatever Extra Crunchy the store has, which at this point means big jars of Jif at Costco.
posted by fedward at 7:51 PM on October 29, 2022


The No Name brand is the best of the remaining options

May I introduce you to ‘Nuts to You’ Organic? It is somewhat expensive, but really amazing
(as far as something that isn't almond butter, that is)
posted by scruss at 8:03 PM on October 29, 2022


Santa Cruz Organic, Dark Smooth is our go to PB.

It's pretty good stuff.

(Grew up on Skippy. but, so much sugar... Which, admittedly is yum, but)
posted by Windopaene at 8:11 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]




I’m another person who only likes peanut butter when it’s safely located in small doses inside of chocolate.

But as someone who bakes with pb on occasion and lives in a home with “normal” people who eat the stuff, let me pass on the recommendation I got from someone here - if you buy the natural kind that separates, this twirly doohickey really works.
posted by Mchelly at 8:22 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


There's nothing like the simple joy of peanut butter and honey on toast. (A sandwich will also do.) But I've become a fan of the honey roasted peanut butter freshly ground in the machine at my local grocery and that's too much sweetness at once.

I've tried CB's but there is no discernable salt in that stuff and it tastes blah to me and it's nowhere near crunchy enough; I don't like their bagged peanuts, either, because they say they're salted but they really aren't. As someone with problems because of low sodium, I want snacks with actual salt on them, plus I just like salty peanuts anyway. (I really wish I could understand why no stores here carry Hoody's peanuts anymore; the only bagged peanuts I can find now are really subpar.)

Also, dang, you guys are making me wanna cry over the Last Exit. I lived in Terry Hall around the corner in the late '70s, and now I'm just drowning in nostalgia.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 8:35 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


For roasted peanuts themselves, unless fresh made, I know of nothing better than Hubs. Extravagant except that they’re so good, and unusual in being made in a tree-nut-free facility.
posted by clew at 8:47 PM on October 29, 2022


jquinby, his mouth wide

Skippy, when the walls fell
posted by sockshaveholes at 8:49 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


Irv, at cost.

The back entrance to the Last Exit was like a portal fantasy. Down an alley, then a sudden turn behind a hedge where it looked like you were about to fall into an excavated parking-lot, and then a few chairs and the noise of the kitchen and down more irregular stairs to the steam and the talk and the people. And who knew *what* would happen!
posted by clew at 8:55 PM on October 29, 2022


Peanut butter with sliced pickles and sriracha is just a fantastic sandwich, about as close to blowing my mind as a PB sandwich could possible be. I think smooth actually works best for this, and it’s possible cheaper sweeter might be better.

In general, however, peanut butter ground in the grocery store with no added salt, sugar, or oil is my consistent fave. Just peanuts and the texture is between smooth and crunchy. Almost whipped when fresh!
posted by pkingdesign at 8:56 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


I grew up on Peter Pan smooth and hated JIF and Skippy, but it didn't exist when I moved from Winston-Salem to Seattle. I moved back home last year a loyal Santa Cruz dark roasted crunchy man, and my brother wrinkled his nose in shocked disgust.

It was my turn to be surprised when my mom mentioned this year that she didn't really like peanut butter - how many PB&J sandwiches had she made us on the daily for ten + years? It was a food neither my brother or I ever complained about. I still eat as many as 4 or 5 PB&J a week.

There's a great Groundnut Stew recipe relying on smooth peanut butter, that Michael Twitty put in his book on Rice a few years back. So good, and easy to make.

Thanks for posting this Jessamyn
posted by SoundInhabitant at 9:05 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Crunchy is required for the best treat, sandwiches of frozen Thin Mint cookies and PB. Crunchy, because smooth squeezes out when you bite down.
posted by Marky at 9:22 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


chocotaco: I just skimmed this whole thing to check for Teddie Peanut Butter. It’s the best!

Teddie Peanut Butter for me too, please, smooth. Homogenized but otherwise unfuckedup is my favorite style—I could live on this shit. (When it gets to the more hardcore nut butters that you have to stir yourself, that's where I bow out.)

This is where they make it. Everett, MA! A local product!

Sesame Street was there! [Song] - [Documentary Style]
posted by not_on_display at 9:32 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


When I rode cross-country a few years ago I started out with a pannier of foods, visions of cooking in my head. Within a week or so it was all chucked, replaced with flour tortillas, a jar of crunchy peanut butter, and a jar of Nutella. All three keep forever in the heat, and the PB & Nutella wraps provided an energy-intense backup meal just boring enough to keep me searching for small-town restaurants to eat in for most meals.


Best damn decision I made on the trip, aside from deciding to make the trip to begin with that is.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:11 PM on October 29, 2022 [13 favorites]


Both peanut butter and pizza are foods I think I've burnt out on. I don't dislike them but never seek them out.

But when I did eat peanut butter, it was smooth, usually with grape jelly, on a sandwich. I never found fancier jams or jellies tasted quite right with it.
posted by emjaybee at 10:52 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Crunchy on toast with sliced banana and drizzled with honey. It's my go to late night snack. Wash it down with a mug of milk (it tastes better from a mug instead of a glass, I swear).
posted by Arbac at 11:08 PM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


You know, I have a feeling peanuts are about ready for a marketing revolution something like what happened to coffee right around the time Starbucks was founded, and similar to the way chilis have taken off in the last few years.

There are plenty of cultivars out there among the four 'market types', with lots of variations in morphology and flavors too, apparently. I’d certainly be up for trying a few, and I’d guess they're a lot easier to roast at home than coffee is, and not that much more difficult to grind.

If I were a coffee importer I might look around in the regions where my coffee was growing and see what exotic varieties of peanuts are available.

Maybe Sweet Maria's could branch out into peanuts, for one very small example.

At the very least, maybe we could see varieties of peanuts in stores like all the different kinds of rice we can buy now.
posted by jamjam at 11:49 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Peanut butter and pickle (sour or dill cucumber pickles) sandwiches are my go-to hiking food. I thought they sounded revolting but my friend brought them on a hike and was kind enough to share.

I'll preach it 'til I die: pb & pickles is the perfect combination of salty, savory, sweet and sour.
posted by workerant at 12:40 AM on October 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


fedward: The year I lived in Germany I could only get the natural stuff. I ate a lot of it, but I was happy to come home again.

Yeah, Germany is not really a peanut butter country. The Netherlands however is. Possibly because of a different colonial history? I'm not sure.
In any case, peanut butter is very common and cheap here. It's different from American peanut butter, but we do have chunky and smooth varieties.

My fave is chunky, with cucumber slices and sambal.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:54 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'll preach it 'til I die: pb & pickles is the perfect combination of salty, savory, sweet and sour.

Agreed. To my partner’s horror our 3 year old now loves PB&BP (Branston pickle), a uk relish not entirely like A1 sauce with pickles in, and while that sounds revolting, it’s a real flavour bomb. I don’t know exactly how I happened across it as a kid, but it is amazing.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:04 AM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


LionIndex: Next step: on a hamburger.

This is not at all unlike satay sauce on a hamburger, a likely combo at a BBQ.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:19 AM on October 30, 2022


St. Oops: Maybe the Indonesian influence in Holland has something to do with Dutch peanut butter appreciation?

It appears to have originated in Suriname, not the Dutch East Indies, and has been on the market in the Netherlands since 1903. Mentions of peanut butter in Suriname go back a couple more decades.

My personal favourite is Faja Lobi Surinaamse pindakaas, made with a number of spices, and chillies. Swiet Moffo is okay too, crunchier but also sweeter. This after progressing from plain peanut butter to pb with brown sugar, then adding sambal (chilli paste) and finally a few drops of kecap (Indonesian soy sauce). Which goes quite a way to putting satay sauce on a sandwich.

Making satay sauce starting with peanut butter is not uncommon, but you should only do so either with 100% pb or when you absolutely have no other source of peanuts and are utterly desperately in need of satay sauce.

I've found a recipe for peanut butter in a cookbook for Dutch housewives still living in newly independent Indonesia (there's no publishing date that I've found; that page is missing but from the illustrations it's from the early 1950's) with Real Dutch Food being hard or even impossible to come by, substituting local ingredients and how to prepare them. For peanut butter it's ground or chopped peanuts, pinch of sugar, pinch of salt and some margarine.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:12 AM on October 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


I'm amused that almost all long standing commercial food production competition in the United States is from messy corporate/partnership breakups and involves names like Skippy being the offspring of Peter Pan.
posted by srboisvert at 4:53 AM on October 30, 2022


I like both. Current jar is crunchy, previous jar was smooth.
What I do have a preference for is valencia nuts.
I really miss Deaf Smith.
posted by MtDewd at 5:00 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Stoneshop: has been on the market in the Netherlands since 1903.

Sorry, that was based on a reference I've found to have been incorrectly dated, but the word (and thus probably the product) has been around at least since that time.
posted by Stoneshop at 5:04 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


But ixnay on the palm oil, OK?
posted by y2karl at 6:10 AM on October 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciates an undercoat of actual butter underneath peanut butter on toast (or on english muffins or bagels or saltines or whatever).

Straight up peanut butter on crackers is fine, but isn't peanut butter on bread just too claggy and dry without a little bit of butter? I'm always a bit surprised to see people going, "Oh, English people are so weird, they put butter on sandwiches." Like, you don't? Are they not a bit dry and sad?
And then I realised it may be because we don't tend to put mayonnaise on everything, so maybe that's why? We use butter the way Americans use mayo?
Then again, I realise peanut butter and mayonnaise is not a typical combination, so...results pending.
It's not often you hear Americans be like, "Oh, those English with their overly decadent use of flavour and texture combinations," that's all I'm saying.
posted by BlueNorther at 6:18 AM on October 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


Team Teddie!!!

Best thing: 1. jar of Teddie peanut butter 2. spoon.

I used to play little league ball near the Teddie building and the smell of roasted peanuts in the air was magical.
posted by drowsy at 6:19 AM on October 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


Teddie PB on a toasted English muffin with banana slices has been my go to breakfast for...20 years or so. Great post, gonna try out a bunch of the new-to-me PB combos people mentioned.
posted by emd3737 at 6:26 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Smuckers Crunchy is how I roll. I sub it in for sesame paste/crushed peanuts on my dan dan noodles.
posted by mikelieman at 6:28 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


but isn't peanut butter on bread just too claggy and dry without a little bit of butter\

Hence jam or jelly (not the UK gelatin stuff) or honey. No butter on those. But if I'm having peanut butter toast (or PB english muffins), definitely butter first. And no jam or jelly. Just butter and PB.
posted by cooker girl at 6:53 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


What ever happened to Peter Pan's Whipped Peanut Butter?
Also, Team creamy peanut butter, lightly smeared on thin slices of apple. Delish.
Any bread, any jam or jelly, and peanut butter. Also delicious.
Once upon a time my gut could tolerate crunchy peanut butter. My sweet husband still buys it.
posted by TrishaU at 7:03 AM on October 30, 2022


It was my turn to be surprised when my mom mentioned this year that she didn't really like peanut butter - how many PB&J sandwiches had she made us on the daily for ten + years?

I wonder if the former is related to the latter.
posted by TedW at 7:27 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Ghidorah, have you seen this video?
posted by TedW at 7:39 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


There used to be a donut shop in town that made peanut butter bars (like a maple bar, but with peanut butter on top instead of maple icing) topped with crispy bacon. They also offered the same thing, topped with Froot Loops. I miss that place.
posted by xedrik at 7:40 AM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]




Growing up one of my favorite peanut butter based snacks was Saltine crackers with peanut butter and room temperature normal butter. It was something like 2/3 peanut butter with 1/3 butter on top, not mixed. I don’t remember how on earth I came up with this and I cannot imagine how unhealthy it was to just throw a little bit of extra saturated fat in my peanut butter, and contrasted with the salty, crispy saltines. Min Dieu, it was amazing. I kinda wanna try it again even though I’m sure it’s been 20 years since I last had it, but I’m worried it will be just as good as I remember and I will not be able to stop.

The flipside, I could not stand peanut butter and apples as a kid. Adult me re-discovered this combo a few years back and has no idea what kid me was so turned off by, this combo is amazing!

Peanut butter snack that has persisted through adulthood: a spoonful or three of peanut butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips mixed in. I recently upgraded to mini semi-sweet chocolate chips and it’s just the perfect size ratio for the peanut butter. Yes, chocolate and peanut butter are pretty obvious, but this combo in particular just kicks the ass of any store bought combo.

But I will spoonful peanut butter when I’ve forgotten to eat and need some quick calories. Perfect foodstuff, sugar to quiet the now demand with protein and fat for satiation. Or maybe I just like peanut butter.

For a while, jif made a cinnamon peanut butter that was just so freaking good. I haven’t thought to look for any alternatives, though I think I might be doing that today now that I’ve thought of it.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:01 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


[insert clever name here]: jif made a cinnamon peanut butter

Even though it's been several decades since its brand name has been replaced with Cif, over here Jif is still strongly associated with scouring agent.
posted by Stoneshop at 8:21 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


But in a universe where PECAN butter exists, peanut butter (even the superior chunky version) just doesn't even make the cut.

I did not realize until this moment that I live in such a universe, but now I desperately want to try some. Although given what I know about the relative prices of pecans and peanuts, I can't imagine pecan butter becoming the daily staple that peanut butter is.

My favorite will always be creamy peanut butter (the natural kind that you have to stir) and strawberry jam on mass-produced squishy white bread. My current dietary restrictions mean that this is approximately 1 tablespoon of PB and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar-free Smuckers strawberry jam on "Very Thin" Pepperidge Farm white bread. I take this teeny-tiny sandwich and cut it into four itty-bitty squares to make it last longer. It's kind of like a PB & J canape rather than a sandwich, but the flavors are still spot-on comfort food.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:56 AM on October 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


but isn't peanut butter on bread just too claggy and dry without a little bit of butter

"I’m not a very FUSSY man…"
posted by clew at 9:39 AM on October 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


I can't be the only one who eats peanut butter on bread with black olives. Feels like I'm in "Mamma always said I was special..." territory.
posted by techSupp0rt at 9:46 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


The flipside, I could not stand peanut butter and apples as a kid. Adult me re-discovered this combo a few years back and has no idea what kid me was so turned off by, this combo is amazing!

Chances are the "apple" you had as a kid was a Red Delicious, which we all know befouls everything it touches.
posted by jeremias at 9:58 AM on October 30, 2022 [6 favorites]


Metafilter: Peanut butter + X—trust me, it’ll change your life
posted by gottabefunky at 10:58 AM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


Oh another fun thing about peanut butter is it doesn't have enough moisture in it to detonate Pop Rocks so jelly is now obsolete, sorry.
posted by aubilenon at 11:46 AM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


Ugh. I hate it with a passion. I don't mind a satay, but peanut butter, nope.
posted by bifurcated at 12:22 PM on October 30, 2022


With the exception of trips to to Italy and the UK, I haven't gone two days straight without having peanut butter in four, perhaps five, decades. I like a straightforward Peter Pan (creamy) and Smuckers grape jelly, and on the occasions when I've eaten lunch out (not since before the pandemic), I have my PB&J for dinner, generally with other lunchy stuff.

Peanut butter on a bit of a Granny Smith apple or in celery, is a fun alternative snack. And I've noticed that almost all American candy bars with chocolate taste like chemicals these days vs. the chocolatey goodness of my childhood...except Reese's.

I'm a picky eater, diabetic, and a vegetarian. Peanut Butter (along, of course, with cheese) is my main source of protein. I have to say, my biggest peanut butter-related disappointed was when, during the pandemic, Peter Pan temporarily but then permanently stopped making Peter Pan Whipped. It was lower in fat and carbs, easier to spread, and lighter in consistency. Sigh.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 12:40 PM on October 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


I don't want to judge and shame but y'all eat some weird things with peanut butter.
posted by bondcliff at 1:13 PM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


I love fluffernutters (pb & marshmallow fluff sndwich), PB&J, PB cookies, ideally w/ chocolate fudge chunks. Toast or an English muffin with butter, PB & Marmite; I just got some Marmite, which is not typical in US groceries. Pasta with spicy peanut sauce, really, I'd probably eat cardboard with peanut sauce. I no longer eat dairy and sometimes really crave peanut butter fudge the way Mom made it, usually in the early part of an old movie on tv - 2 cups granulated sugar, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup creamy peanut butter is what I remember. Apples, especially granny smith, sliced and spread with PB. Chicken satay, yum.

Chunky and smooth are both good. I really love the sweet, salty, grainy peanut butter in Reeses cups, and would buy it if I could.

I dislike PB desserts that are gooey and too sweet, but they usually have dairy, so I'm spared.

What a good post, and I promise I'll try bacon in a PB sandwich. It sounds like an umami bomb, so that's good.
posted by theora55 at 1:17 PM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


My spouse just tried the pb, pickle, sriracha on toast thing and says it’s amazing. I don’t like the latter two things at all, but if you like those separately she says try it !
posted by caviar2d2 at 1:19 PM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Just wanted to say that if you have a food processor and you haven't tried to make your own peanut butter, you are missing out.

Or even an immersion blender! It's sooooo easy and you can make it however you want! Roasted peanuts? Sure! No salt? No problem!

Most of the peanut butter in our house is consumed by our dog (for medicine and what not), but boy.... as far as peanut butter goes, NOTHING beats homemade!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:22 PM on October 30, 2022


TedW, wow. I hadn’t, and man, if they’d done it like that at my summer camp, I doubt I’d be looking back on it as a cherished childhood memory of learning how important precision can be. The counselors made sure to keep it lighthearted, and none of us ever got so frustrated that we almost broke down (like the guy’s son). I didn’t really want to finish watching that after the kid was face down on the counter in frustration next to smug dad.

For us, all the instructions were collected and read through, with another counselor making the sandwich abominations. There was no sense of frustration, just a communal “oh no, how bad is ours going to end up?” kind of excited, joking expectations. After that, we got another try to write up instructions again, and the demonstrations were markedly less exacting. Honestly, given the chance to do it again, instead of a second period of group work to rewrite, I’d probably have the class brainstorm it together, if only to streamline it, and keep any groups from ending up embarrassed at a second “failure.”

Anyway, to keep it peanut related: not peanut butter, but when I lived in China, I had some amazing cold noodles with a spicy, vaguely coarse peanut sauce. Staple breakfast of Wuhan, and absolutely delicious. Chili, crushed peanuts, maybe a little soy sauce as a binder, no idea what else was in it, but damn, delicious.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:00 PM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


peanut butter sandwich on toast

Assuming you mean 'peanut butter on toast' (not a sandwich), there's only one right way to do this:
Toast must be exactly at the point where it becomes brown and crunchy but before it gets hard or dry
Butter must be applied immediately and spread exactly edge-to-edge
Peanut butter must then be applied immediately and spread exactly edge-to-edge while the toast is still warm.

Yes, a somewhat runny mess if you do it right, but this is the correct way to consume peanut butter.
posted by dg at 3:43 PM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


It occurs to me that I’ve probably had peanut butter on toast most days of my life.
posted by MtDewd at 4:43 PM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Crunchy peanut butter on slices of Granny Smith apples with honey please and thank you

oh my god you turn it upside down
posted by tzikeh at 4:52 PM on October 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


Peanut butter and bacon and thinly sliced Bermuda onion or peanut butter and bacon and thinly sliced sweet gherkin pickles.

Or peanut butter and honey mixed & smoothed on on one slice and jam of choice on facing slice.

Such were my childhood choices. No bacon for me now.
posted by y2karl at 5:24 PM on October 30, 2022


I'll just step into my role as an old and let you crazy kids know they used to sell peanut butter and bacon in the same jar.
posted by Rumple at 6:03 PM on October 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


Teddie has the sexiest mascot. I swear that all that smooth and super (c)hunk of a bear does is lie around suggestively and raise its eyebrows at people all day as if to say “I know you want this”
posted by donut_princess at 7:17 PM on October 30, 2022


PB&J on fresh, hot toast. *Proustian sigh*
posted by wenestvedt at 9:46 AM on October 31, 2022


For those of us who are allergic to peanuts? Sunbutter to the rescue! It's sunflower seed butter, and the closest thing that I can find to actual peanut butter.

I buy it by the case, and an average breakfast for me is sunbutter and raspberry jam, on Finn Crisp crackers.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:55 AM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]


Rumple: peanut butter and bacon in the same jar.

Simulated bacon.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:58 AM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]


If possible, stick with fresh-ground. No additives. It's less quick to separate than the stuff in jars. And especially tasty. I was shocked when I originally discovered how much sugar was in my peanut butter!
posted by Goofyy at 2:33 PM on October 31, 2022


ok, hear me out... Picture a wonderful bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. Now you've got fresh bread on the side. Instead of buttering your bread, please spread peanut butter on it (smooth for easy spreading; chunky if you really prefer) and dunk the bread into the soup. It's such a great flavor. /drool
posted by hydra77 at 2:51 PM on October 31, 2022


hydra77: chunky for dunky!
posted by aubilenon at 6:29 PM on October 31, 2022


Why do you keep saying “chunky”? It’s “crunchy”!
posted by bendy at 11:26 PM on October 31, 2022


Except when it's chunky too. Search 'chunky peanut butter' in Google to see all the other chunky crunchy brands listed.
posted by y2karl at 3:57 AM on November 1, 2022


PB and bologna is good. So much fat and protein. Keeps ya going. Also PB and cheese. Sometimes I'll just dip strips of mozzarella in the PB.

Except I am just getting over Norwalk and I can't even stand the smell of PB right now.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:37 AM on November 1, 2022


Things I learned today: you can get peanuts freshly ground in US grocery stores. That sounds wonderful.

View from the UK: I prefer crunchy, all-natural please, maaaaybe salted but unsalted is fine (I can always add salt). I love it in my porridge in the morning - a tablespoon of PB makes the difference between "hungry by 10.30" and "can make it through to lunch".

My 9yo son has eaten peanut butter on toast (sometimes on a bagel) for breakfast nearly every day since he was 2.
posted by altolinguistic at 8:02 AM on November 1, 2022


Oh yeah, peanut butter on a toasted plain bagel is fabulous. It's gotta be warm enough to melt the peanut butter a bit.
posted by hydra77 at 10:12 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


And I've gotten the impression that outside of the US, most other countries consider our undying devotion to peanut butter to be weird.

This may be apocryphal, but I understand the French are horrified at Americans' use and love of peanut butter. But Jerry Lewis used to be popular over there so huh?
posted by slogger at 1:58 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


An entire thread and no mention of the horror that is Smuckers’ Goober Grape?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:22 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


If we start discussing why Goober Grape is horrible, we'll have to get into the whole jelly vs jam vs preserves thing.
We're doing peanut butter today.
Someone else can sponsor a post on "what even IS marmalade? and what the fuck is a compote?" and we'll raise more funds that way.
posted by bartleby at 5:25 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]


Why do you keep saying “chunky”? It’s “crunchy”!

chonky peanut butter
posted by Going To Maine at 10:55 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Or maybe that's the name of a fat hamster.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:56 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


My dad brown-bagged his lunches, and they were almost always a peanut butter (smooth) and mayonnaise sandwich. Don’t knock it ‘till you try it. Seriously.

Hear me out - pb, mayo, & strawberry jam sandwiches. The mayo cuts through the cloying sweetness & makes the sandwich more interesting.

Oh - and Smuckers Natural Chunky is the best. Just peanuts & salt. During the pandemic our grocery delivery substituted some other "natural" pb that had tons of sugar & oil added; it was disgustingly greasy & sweet.
posted by belladonna at 4:51 PM on November 8, 2022


But Jerry Lewis used to be popular over there so huh?

Because he was the epitome of what an American man was to the French, I am thinking: gauche, crude and grotesque.
posted by y2karl at 6:06 AM on November 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


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