Peanut butter Peanut-butter conquest One thousand uses Commentary

Marcellus Gilmore Edson food science

Peanut butter

• Domesticated in pre-Columbian
• Central and South America,
• high in protein, high in nutrients,
• the peanut is a pea
• and not a nut.
• Nine thousand years later,
• for people who had trouble
• chewing solid food,
• Marcellus Gilmore Edson
• patented peanut butter.
• Little did the Aztecs or Edson
• realize the joy
• of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• and chocolate peanut butter cups.

Peanut-butter conquest

• John Harvey Kellogg,
• who invented toasted corn flakes
• with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg,
• developed peanut butter
• as a health food.
• George Washington Carver
• who promoted it as a cheap
• and healthy addition
• to the American diet
• and a way to restore
• nitrogen to depleted soils,
• included peanut butter
• among a hundred and five recipes
• for cooking with peanuts.
• Now it is a staple the world over.

One thousand uses

• George Washington Carver published only
• one hundred and five ways to prepare peanuts,
• but he didn’t have a poetic license
• and he wasn’t trying to be funny.
• Seriously, he proposed three hundred uses for peanuts,
• including glue, metal polish, and wood stain.
• But he was silent about using peanut sauce in stir-fries,
• and about adding peanut butter to energy bars,
• and sticking peanuts up your nostrils to reduce odors.
• Marcellus Gilmore Edson added sugar to peanut butter to stiffen it,
• but not chocolate chips, nor ginger cookies, nor coconut flakes,
• nor, for a warm thrill, baking chocolate and chipotle powder.
• Orange rind, crushed mint candy, and marmalade are all good.
• Peanut-butter pie, peanut-butter ice-cream, peanut-butter cookies.
• Peanut-stuffed olives and peanut-butter-coated chicken wings.
• Paste peanut butter on pretzels, slather it on chocolate bars,
• spread it on cookies, thin and drizzle it over vegetables and rice.
• Peanut butter and raisins on celery is called “ants on a stick.”
• Eat it with granola, eat it with carrots, mix it with birdseed to feed the birds.
• Sandwiches with peanut butter and banana, with peanut butter and mayonaise.
• Cucumber and peanut-butter tea cakes. Salted peanut-butter chip dip.
• Add a dollop of peanut butter to hot oatmeal or vegetable soup.
• Make a cake of puffed rice stuck together with peanut butter.
• Dip long-stemmed strawberries in melted peanut butter.
• Peanut-butter and banana popsicles.
• Peanut-butter-stuffed pastries.
• Baked apple with peanut butter in the core.
• Above all, be proud of your humble peanut butter.
• It connects you with the poor farmers of the Southern states;
• it connects you with history and people throughout the world.