In praise of peanut butter

 

Image by Freepik

When I was a kid, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich was a staple in our household. I loved it, still do, but to this day when I mention it, it’s like I recommended eating liver for supper (that’s not bad either). Most people seem never to have heard of the sandwich combination although truth is it has been a staple in southern America since the Great Depression. The combination of tangy mayonnaise (I do not think Miracle Whip is an acceptable substitute) with salty peanut butter was a cheap and good source of nourishment. Traditionally, the sandwich, like a tomato or pimiento cheese sandwich, was always made with white bread, what I call “cotton candy bread” because of the way it dissolves in your mouth. I prefer a good rye bread with my peanut butter.

Some weird variations have come to my attention over the years. The “Elvis sandwich” adds crumbled bacon and sliced bananas. Some people add lettuce for a bit of crispness—my mom was of the lettuce school. Others add grated cheese—sharp cheddar adds a distinctive flavor, while the milder cheddar gives the sandwich a creamier texture. When really hungry, I’ve been known to add bacon, cheese, and lettuce to the basic sandwich.

The other day I ran across one of those online glimpses into what we ate in the past. This harked back not to the food of the Fifties which so intrigues me but to the wartime days of the forties, when men were recruited as civilian defense workers and air raid wardens. (I remember walking our neighborhood with my uncle, looking for illegal cracks of light peeking through blackout curtains.) Whoever compiled these sandwich fillings meant them to sustain these men, many working outdoors for the first time in their lives.       

Peanut butter was a staple. With chili sauce. With prunes and pickle relish (an odd combination, to my mind). With green pepper and celery (nice crunch and okay if you like bell pepper, which I don’t). With raisins (maybe, but mayo would help). With chopped ham, vinegar, and salt and pepper (no idea how much vinegar, but I’m skeptical).

Cheese was another staple. Grated, with ketchup, onion, Tabaso, and cream (I’m still trying to figure out what the cream was doing in there). Sliced, with ham, Worcestershire sauce, cream, and mayonnaise.. Cream cheese with ham and mustard. Cream cheese with grated raw carrot, a few drops of lemon juice, and salt and pepper. (A digression: as a child, my Colin loved a cream cheese and mayonnaise sandwich, and I can still hear one of his playmates protesting, “But Colin, it has no flavor!”)

And then there were some surprises: Veal salad made with celery, lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper, and mayonnaise (veal must have been considerably cheaper in those days). Liver sausage salad with pickle, onion, and mayonnaise (maybe popular during the war but probably wouldn’t get many takers today).  Mashed baked beans with mayonnaise. Or add applesauce to those beans. Crab meat salad had pimiento, cucumber and mayonnaise. And then, of course there were egg salad and ham salad.

I don’t expect many to try these odd combinations, but when was the last time you made peanut butter cookies? In the spirit of leaving you with a usable recipe from this weekly column, here’s my peanut butter cookie recipe. I bet it sounds familiar to you but, like me, you haven’t thought about it in a while.

 

Peanut butter cookies

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

½ cup white sugar

1 cup butter, softened to room temperature—Mom may have used the new margarine, I’m not sure, but I can imagine her using two sticks of butter. I recommend butter, however.

2 eggs

1 cup smooth peanut butter

2-1/4 cup flour

2 level tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Cream sugars and butter. Add eggs and peanut butter. Add flour, soda, and salt.

Roll a small amount of dough in the palm of your hand to make a round ball. Place on greased cookie sheet. With a fork,  press down on dough ball, first in one direction and then in the other so that you create a criss-cross pattern. This is the hallmark of peanut butter cookies, and they won’t taste the same without it.

Bake at350^o for 12 – 15 minutes or until edges barely start to brown.

PS: A warning. Do you feed your dog peanut butter? I used to slather it on a cracker to hide a pill, but some peanut butters today have a sugar-free ingredient called xylitol. It can be fatal to a dog within minutes. Read your labels when buying peanut butter—or anything else.