PB&J

Spam needs no introduction to Saipan Tribune readers, so here’s some business news for you: Hormel, the company that makes Spam, now owns the Skippy peanut butter business as well. The deal was done in 2013.

The news, however, just hit my desk. I must be one of the top-ten Skippy peanut butter customers of all time, so they could have at least sent me a memo or something. Hormel’s Skippy purchase was reportedly a $700-million transaction, and that’s a lot of coin, so maybe they got distracted and misrouted my memo. Well, I’m an understanding guy, so the deal has my blessings anyway, which I’m sure will be of great comfort to all concerned.

The peanut butter sandwich, a hallmark of American cuisine, deserves more praise than it gets.

Let’s get practical about things. If you want the ultimate in a field-tested food, ask yourself this: Can I eat it in a helicopter cockpit? Not even the legendary C-ration can meet that benchmark. The peanut butter sandwich can, though. It’s the true veteran of utilitarian foods.

Before we fly any further along this route, I’ll note that the jelly (or a stand-in for jelly, as noted below) is usually implied in the term “peanut butter” sandwich. “PB&J,” meanwhile, is an oft-used abbreviation that’s not too difficult to decipher.

From my experience, PB&J sandwiches keep well without refrigeration, at least good enough to last for a workday. This isn’t something I’d try with tuna, bologna, or anything at all with mayonnaise in it, especially in a warm climate.

Making a peanut butter sandwich is so easy that I can do it, and that’s really saying something. Still, as forgiving as they are, they’re not foolproof. Lousy ingredients will make for a lousy sandwich. So to unlock the true potential of the PB&J sandwich, we need to build it on a firm foundation of good ingredients.

The common depiction of a PB&J sandwich is on white bread, but I’ll contend that sourdough, rye, or pumpernickel make for a far better sandwich. I like to add a fancy touch by toasting the bread.

On a more esoteric note, not always easy for travel but fun for a gourmet flourish, bagels are good platforms for peanut butter and jelly. Pita bread can be a winner as well. Small sourdough rolls are really great for PB&J, especially when toasted.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of ways to win with peanut butter sandwiches.

On the loss side of the ledger, I never had any luck using crackers to make little nugget-sized PB&Js. Yeah, it sounds good in theory. But in reality it leaves a lot of crumbs, and the doggone crackers often fracture mid-bite, thus making an even bigger mess.

One way to get good jelly is to glom onto those little Christmas sampler gift packages that people send you when they don’t know what else to send you. When kith and kin get these things they know to pass them to me for my inventory. Beyond that, I just buy the good stuff in small jars, since I don’t want to look at the same giant jar of jam sitting in the fridge for the next six months.

Some folks dispense with the jelly entirely. One substitute is marshmallow spread. This sandwich is called a “fluffernutter,” so known for a brand of spread known as Marshmallow Fluff. One advantage of the fluffernutter is that the marshmallow spread isn’t as likely to ooze, drip, and stain the clothes as much as jelly is. At the table, that’s not a big deal, but if you’re not at the table, well, there you go.

Another jelly substitute, which can make a royal mess if too much is used, is honey. Yet another substitute is sliced bananas. And yet another, other option is butter, though I’ll confess this is one variation that I have failed to acquire a taste for.

As handy as they are to make and eat, some paradox of the food world has rendered peanut butter sandwiches all but invisible in the food service industry. You can get hamburgers, pizza, submarine sandwiches, or club sandwiches just about anywhere in the world, but the PB&J sandwich seems to remain the domain of home kitchens. Maybe there’s some PB&J nirvana somewhere that I’ve yet to discover, where these sandwiches finally get their due.

Looking back at the business side of things, Skippy is the best-selling brand of peanut butter in China. So this gives Hormel an even bigger footing in the region. Might the Chinese someday acquire a taste for PB&J? I don’t know what the odds are, but I guess it could happen.

But unless such a day arrives, peanut butter sandwiches seem relegated to being an under-appreciated part of American lore, one that has been spread through life for over 100 years.