Peanut Butter Reconsidered

Never a kid with any real affinity for peanut butter, my lifetime peanut butter consumption might fill ten standard size jars. Entire years of my life have elapsed without me swallowing the stuff. I don't hate it and never have; I just never developed any pressing desire for it. As a child--when my mother still made lunchtime sandwiches for her children as per their request--I ate the tuna or bologna or cheese or other savory option, never the "straight butter, honey, peanut butter" sandwich my siblings often petitioned for. Although I think I did sample a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a weak and frivolous attempt to be at one with popular elementary school lunch culture, even PB&J failed to lure me into the fold of peanut butter devotees. Any sandwich I carried to school for lunch purposes held animal protein between the bread.

In the dorms my freshman year in college I finally learned to eat and somewhat enjoy peanut butter--on crackers (I preferred saltines to grahams) and even in a PB&J sandwich prepared in the dorm cafeteria when the proffered main course lacked requisite edible traits. Before I graduated, a roommate introduced me to a peanut butter cookie recipe that I still keep on file--and occasionally bake--to this day.

Once I began teaching school, peanut butter sporadically figured into plans and activities with students. I remember one time when a lesson included a tasting activity, and my students informed me that the peanut butter sample provided tasted OLD. I had no real measure in taste memory to evaluate the freshness of peanut butter, and I had never before considered that peanut butter might have a shelf life! No doubt the culprit peanut butter came from a jar dating back to at least the previous year's tasting activity!

Over the ensuing years I have consumed--and enjoyed--a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on certain rare occasions. I eat peanut butter cookies--those baked according to the instructions on the recipe from that former college roommate and those other people bake with a Hershey's Kiss pressed into the middle. And I absolutely love peanut sauce (especially with chicken sate and other Asian entrees) which, even I must admit, has a close relationship with peanut butter.

In December I skied three days in a row. On days two and three, my ski buddies and I chose to carry sandwiches to the slopes instead of paying premium prices for sub-standard fare at the ski lodge. And, yes, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! I can't remember anything about my lunch on day one except that it cost a shocking amount and was utterly disappointing gastronomically. But I do remember lunches on days two and three, and they were supremely satisfying: PB&J sandwiches, apples, water, and Coke Zero.

I got sick in January, had little appetite, and wandered the commissary aisles in search of something that might tempt me to eat. And, yep, I ended up buying peanut butter, grape jelly, and bread! In the last two months I have eaten SIX peanut butter and jelly sandwiches--likely at least five more than I consumed in the previous decade of my existence, especially considering I had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich since moving to Japan until the two I ate while skiing in December. I suspect I probably lunched on at least one peanut butter and jelly sandwich sometime during the eighteen years I lived in Germany.

Then, Thursday night of this last week I arrived home with a mean craving for those no-bake cookies made with cocoa, peanut butter, and oatmeal. (Truly, the fact that this kind of no-bake cookie showed up for refreshments at a church youth activity a couple of weeks ago and the reality that I currently have a jar of peanut butter residing in my home have to bear some of the blame.) I looked up a recipe on the Internet, cooked up a batch, and could scarcely contain my nibbling to allow them sufficient cooling time. Such a divine assuaging of rapacious desire!