Peanut Butter and Jelly

The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rommage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history. Vote for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Gonna be in Boston for the mega-awesome. Yeah, that's right. It's Mick and I'll be back in Boston on Sunday, April 26th for WBWR's mega-awesome super-huge wicked fun podcast play date. I perform at noon just after my friends from "Greaking Out" who go on it then. "Greaking Out" and "The Past" and "The Curious" throw in some grim, grim, grim and grim mist and you have a really special day of live podcast fun. I can't wait. It happens at WBWR's "City Space" and is one of my absolute favorite events. Details and tickets for the entire weekend are at www.bur.org. I also have links at my website and I'll have a very special guest. I can't wait to see you in Boston. You're listening to an Air Wave Media Podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to "The Past" and "The Curious" it's your old pal, Mick. And if you've listened before you know that every so often I get fascinated by a food, I've covered ice cream, donuts, tomatoes, even early cookbooks. But today's episode came from a question that my friends sent my way. Perhaps you know them? Lindsay and Marshall from Tumble? Hey Mick, it's Lindsay. And it's also Marshall from Tumble. So the question in question doesn't actually come from us, it came from our listener, Leyla. She wanted to know the history of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Which is like, that's a really great question, but it's definitely not a science question because PB&J happened like after the Big Bang, I think. So we wanted to get your perspective since you focus on history. Oh yeah, I was recently on Tumble to offer a quick answer to Leyla's great question. But you know, I kept poking around and it turns out there's a lot that goes into the old peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah, we figured there was more to the story, like sometimes people put raisins in it. What? I mean, I can't be prepared for that. I think we're confusing that with ants on a log. Can you give me a full history of ants on a log? Well, I wasn't really prepared for that. I'm going to go ahead and plant some celery seeds and I'll get back to you on the ants on a log thing. Promise. But in the meantime, I would like to tell you the robust history of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I never know where to start with these things. Make, you gotta break it down piece by piece. Let's start with ingredient number one, bread. Oh, great idea. Ever tried to cut a slice from a loaf of bread? It's harder than you think. Just if you have the wrong knife, you're just going to mangle and mush your loaves. Successful slicing takes the magic combination of a serrated blade and a steady, soft, sawing motion. But even if you manage to cut a slice and still have an un-mangled, unmushed loaf of bread, getting an even and properly sized slice is another problem altogether. One end is then, the other is thick, the top is wide, the bottom is narrow. There's a hole in it from slicing too close to the edge. It's a nightmare. And getting two slices exactly alike to make these sandwich of your dreams? Forget about it. You might as well try making back-to-back half-court shots on a basketball court while blindfolded. There's got to be a better way. Yeah, that's what Otto Frederick Roweter thought to himself in the early 1900s while living in St. Charles, Missouri. He was a jeweler, but growing bored with diamonds and gold, he cooked up a passion for fine baked goods cut with accuracy and precision. On the first point, Otto certainly wasn't alone. People have been loving bread for centuries. Archaeologists have found 30,000 years of evidence, both in Europe and Australia, of primitive people pounding dried starchy plant roots with stones and making something like flour. The bread that they made from that flour would have been eaten flat after being cooked on a hot rock in a fire. The big change came from the Middle East around 11,000 years ago. An area known as the "Fertil Crescent" stretches from today's "Iroque" to Turkey to Egypt. And this is a world hearth site. That means it is one of the few officially recognized ancient places where people from long ago first made the big decision to plant some seeds, but not others. This is the birth of plant domestication when people took an active role in what we wanted to grow, usually based on flavor and size and general awesomeness. Before long plants that just happened to grow were grown on purpose, and the individual plants that were the best were the ones whose seeds were replanted. And from the people of the Middle East's "Fertil Crescent" we got wheat. The same wheat that people turn into flour, which makes all sorts of things. Peeds across cookies, pancakes, pasta, and yes, bread. So let's tip our hats to the old Fertil Crescenteers. And then tip our hats again to the Egyptians. Oh, 3,000 years ago, started putting yeast in the dough so it would rise and get airy and fluffy and, well, a different kind of delicious. And for thousands of years we ate bread. We baked it or bought it. But in any case, it was always unsliced. Good luck with your slicing. Or maybe just tear off a chunk and stop up your plate after the food is gone. Heck in the Middle Ages some people in England used flat pieces of bread called trinches as a plate in itself. If you were still hungry, the trincher had soaked up all of the juices and you could eat your soggy plate for dessert. Or if your dinner did fill you up, you could just toss it to your dog, who was always happy to do the dishes for you, if you know what I mean. Anyway, auto-roader sure loved bread. But he saw a beautiful future with sliced bread that he loved even more. So he sold his jewelry business and decided to design and build the world's first bread-slicing machine. Setbacks came in 1917 when a fire destroyed not just his in-progress machine, but also his blueprints. After literally going back to the drawing board, auto finally saw his dream machine come to life. On July 7, 1928 at the Chilli Coffee Baking Company in Chilli Coffee, Missouri, one lucky person bought the first commercially sliced loaf of bread. Unmashed, unmangled, light and airy. It was a dream come true. Yes, it's the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped. That was actually the phrase the Wonderbread Company used in 1930 to describe the game-changing world of sliced bread. Today, when something is new and awesome, we say it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But this is where that phrase originated. Only since there was no such thing as sliced bread. Before sliced bread, all they could do was say the greatest thing since bread was wrapped. The intro was probably like, "Any schmuck can put bread in a bag, but my slicer is going to be the reference point from now on." He was right. Slice bread changed the game. And it gives us our first ingredient in the legendary PB&J. That might be the best thing I've heard about since I heard about wrapped bread, which really was just like a minute ago, because I just heard about it. Yeah, maybe, but it's time to get sticky with ingredient number two. Ingredient number two, grape-alayed. Grape-alayed? Did someone really call something that? Well, let's just call it jelly. Ah, jelly. It's not quite solid. It's not quite liquid. It jiggles and it spreads. It's sweet to eat and. Perfect for breads. It's jelly. Now quick point of order. In European, another non-American places, jelly often refers to things that might be called gelatin, or by brand names like Jello, but we are, of course, not talking about those. The jelly that we are talking about is the jarred fruit spread, the J in PB and J. Fruit is cool. It's delicious and it grows from the ground. Honestly, we can't ask for much more. But if we could ask for more, maybe we'd ask for a longer shelf life, because one thing fruits don't do well as stay fresh for long. If people long ago, in the pre-refrigerator days, grew hearty vegetables like carrots and turnips or squash, they could keep them long into the year by storing them in cool, dark places, often sellers underground. But a winter of dining on squash and turnips sounds uninspiring. Bet the kids in those times would have liked a year's supply of yummy fruits instead. Unfortunately, fruits are different. Any parent who has overpurchased on berries or bananas, knows how quickly, even in the fridge, fruit can go rotten. It's a sad fact of life. But people figured out ways to persevere and preserve. And sugar is a great tool for this. And as it turns out, sugar is also something that most kids really like. But for much of history, sugar was hard or impossible to get. So the first fruit preserves were actually made with honey, which was far more abundant around the world. The first recipe for jam comes from the Roman Empire in the 4th century's CE. A few centuries later, sugar cane from Southeast Asia was introduced to Persia, and from there, around modern-day Iran, comes the first fruit and sugar jam recipe. Now I know what you may be asking. What's the difference between jelly and jam? And while we're at it, what about preserves? Even marmalade. How do those fit in? Okay, here's the deal. If you cook up your sticky sweet stuff with some big chunks or whole fruit and sugar, maybe a few other things, you, my friend, are popping with preserves. If it's citrus and maybe there's some peels involved, you're probably messing with marmalade. And if you cook up some sugar and crushed or mashed up fruits, and you leave in all the fibers, maybe some berry seeds, and what have you, you are jammed with jam. And finally, if you mash up the fruit, strain it so all that's left is the juice, and then you cook that with sugar and a solidifier like pectin, then you are getting jiggy with jelly, baby. And the biggest boom in the modern jelly world came thanks to a father and son who were dentists, which is kind of ironic considering how much sugar we're talking. Anyway, Thomas and Charles Welch founded a company in the 1800s that survives today. At the 1893 world's fair in Chicago, Welch's debuted their ground breaking product, grape juice, perhaps you've heard of it. It was a big hit, and after the 1900s came, they perfected their newest product, Grape-laid. That's right, they called grape jelly, grape-laid. You've heard of marmalade, but this ain't no citrusy spread. It's the jiggly, wiggly, purply, perfectly spreadable clop for your bread. It's grape-laid. People liked grape-laid, even though the name was kind of weird. When World War I happened, an America joined the conflict, the US Army bought every jar of grape-laid that they could get their hands on. It was portable, spoilproof, and had enough calories to provide some energy, and it tasted good. So with that, Welch's grape-laid, which they have originally called grape jelly, the first commercially available jelly was on the way to more and more people's homes by the 1920s, just in time for sliced bread. Call it grape-laid, call it jelly, call it whatever you like. It is our second ingredient, and after the break, we'll go digging around to find the last one, and then we'll put them all together. Hey, here's a message for the grown-ups, and I assume you're like me, and are excited that it is spring. Now, spring does mean that there is some big motion to the end of the year. I don't want to alarm anybody, but you know, that's just what happens. Home-school families are looking to get ahead of spring goals and all of those end-of-year milestones. So it is the perfect time to reinforce key skills, build confidence, all that good stuff before wrapping up the end of the year. The other thing about spring is schedules have a way of filling up with activities and travel and sports, and spring events, all that stuff, you know, it's tough to keep learning consistent, so IXL makes it simple to stay on track with focused, flexible practice that fits your routine. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that fits seamlessly into homeschooling. It offers interactive practice across map, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K all the way to 12th grade. IXL personalizes learning for each child, keeps them engaged and gives parents clear insights into progress. I have recently logged on and found some great things to add to our family routine, and I see some true benefits in using it with my children. It's simple, it's time-saving, everything is organized by grade and subject, so you can quickly find what each child needs without juggling multiple resources. It's also flexible and personalized, so whether reviewing, you know, an earlier concept, you got to catch back up on some stuff or tackling new material, IXL adapts to each child's pace with no pressure. It's proven and trusted as well with over 15 million students using IXL. So make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now, and the past and the curious listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at www.ixl.com/curious. Yes, visit www.ixl.com/curious to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Okay, it's time for you to have 30 seconds in Ayrlin and Idaho. I've always wondered about the origin of the 3-point seatbelt. Hi, my name is Ayrlin Torba, and today I'm talking about the adventure of the seatbelt in Osborne. Osborne was born in Helsinki in 1920. He started his career in 1942 at Sv'Kera Plane, and he acted bulk out on Sennheil Sav as an aircraft engineer, and 1855 was made responsible for the development of catapult seats as well as many other safety equipment for pilots. He was hired in 1958 as a Volvo Safety Engineer to develop better seatbelts in 1959. He invented the 3-point seatbelt, but didn't patent it. He died on September 26, 2000 to an HADM of a heart attack as buried in Torba Church in Sweden. Nice work, Ayrlin. That was fantastic. I am going to go learn more about the origin of the 3-point seatbelt. You have inspired me thusly. Also, where you seatbelt everybody all the time, 100% of the time, okay? If anyone out there has a U-have of 30 seconds, then you know it's real easy. You just recorded on a device. A digital device, and you email it to me at [email protected]. Okay, it's a sandwich quiz. Question number one. There is a legend about where the name Sandwich originated, and it involves a man at a card game who did not wish to stop playing while he ate, so he asked for bread to put around the rest of his food. What was that guy's name? He was a British nobleman named John Montague. What? You don't call your sandwich his Montague's? I do. One tuna Montague, please. Okay, his title was the 4th Earl of Sandwich, which is supposedly where the name comes from. He didn't invent the sandwich. In fact, he probably ate something on bread like a sandwich when he traveled to the Mediterranean during his lifetime. Plus, plenty of cultures have been putting delicious stuff on bread for centuries, and then putting another piece of bread on top of it. That's a sandwich y'all. Or a Montague. Anyway, question number two. How much did the largest sandwich ever made way? It was 2005 in Roseville, Michigan, when a record setting corned beef sandwich was created. All said and done, it was 5,440 pounds. That's 2,467 kilograms. There were gigantic custom sandwich buns and even 150 pounds of mustard on the sandwich that fed a town. That's a whole lot of mustard, baby. Okay, here's your third and final question. Music legend Elvis Presley loved to eat sandwiches, and his favorite sandwich is now named after him today. What were the ingredients of the so-called Elvis sandwich? If you don't know, take a wild guess. Here you go. Peanut butter, banana, and bacon. And if you didn't get it right, that's alright, mama. Anyway you do. It's alright. Okay, so welcome back to the past and the curious. This is a very special episode with my friends, Lindsay and Marshall from Tumble. But I must confess that, you know, in the excitement of quiz time and that fantastic 30 seconds, I forgot where we were. Okay, I mean you just finished talking about Grape-laid, which is jelly. So that leaves the star of the show, ingredient number three. Peanut butter. Oh right, of course. Peanut butter. How silly of me. In the name, George Washington Carver is spoken. Most people for good reason think of the peanut. Say his name three times fast and Mr. Peanut might actually appear over your shoulder. Mr. Peanut. Mr. Peanut. Mr. Peanut. Okay, not really. I made that part up. But if there were a patron saint of peanuts, it would indisputably be Mr. Carver. He was peanut, cheerleader, numero, uno, from axle grease to shoe polish to make up. This guy came up with over 300 uses for the peanut and 105 of those uses were edible. But contrary to the assumptions of many, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. That already existed. But as de facto patron saint of the peanut, no discussion about the lumpy legume is complete without him. Because as much as he cared about peanuts, George Washington Carver cared more about people. That's what got him so excited about peanuts in the first place. Carver was born enslaved in Missouri in 1864. And those slavery was abolished while he was a young child. Many of the formerly enslaved people had a hard time making money to live in the years that followed. These were scarce and getting ahead was hard. Many people were sharecroppers, which meant they farmed land that they did not own for tiny little shares of the profit of the crops. And the major crop was cotton, a plant which depletes the soil of important nutrients as it grows. So the more cotton you grow in one place, the harder it gets to do. Cotton is also not edible. So to the people growing cotton, the plant did them very little good. Carver was smart and curious. He went to school to become a botanist. And as his relationship with plants grew, he realized that the peanut could be the answer to so many problems. Yes, they are nutritious and cheap. But growing them actually improves the quality of the soil, so it's sustainable. Can you hear the word sustainable farming from now on? You should picture George Washington, because this guy understood a head of so many others, so much about taking care of land so that it could take care of people. Honestly, he totally deserves an episode of his own. And I think that will happen. I'm going to promise that he gets one. But let's just leave it at this right now. To him, the peanut would enable thousands of poor farmers to not just feed their families, but also earn a living. To prove it, he devised so many potential peanut-based products. Like his peanut shaving cream, peanut ink, even peanut fuel briquettes for your grill. He did a whole lot more than this and was more than just the peanut champ number one. But let's face facts, he was peanut champ number one. And peanuts are amazing. But most American farmers in Carver's time, and before, grew them to feed their animals. But the ink of people in South America, who probably cultivated them first, knew that they were great for people. In fact, there's a very good chance that they were the first people to make a peanut butter like paste. The crop also grew well in Africa, and it was through the enslaved Africans, kidnapped and brought across the Atlantic Ocean, that peanuts first arrived and were grown on North American farms and plantations. The first patent in America for a product that resembles peanut butter came in 1895. And it was awarded to a businessman and doctor in Michigan named John Harvey Kellogg, as in Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Dude was a big deal in breakfast and breakfast adjacent advancements in eating technology. And while he made big waves in the food world, he was actually most famous in his day, as the leader of Michigan's huge battle Creek Sanitarium. A resort health facility that combined hydrotherapy, spa-like facilities, as well as more hospital-like resources, to serve the health needs of both the poor and rich and famous alike. Two of his most notable clients were Sojourner Truth and Henry Ford. To feed people with health issues, he had a lot of food ideas. His patent for a food compound made of boiled nuts ground into a paste was originally designed as an easy to eat but nourishing food for patients who were missing teeth. As we know now, it's good for all kinds of people. One of his employees soon tweaked the recipe by roasting the nuts, rather than boiling them, which was more flavorful. And while Kellogg's idea was open to all nuts, this guy, Joseph Lambert, focused exclusively on peanuts. Ergo, peanut butter. Soon after, peanut butter sandwiches were most commonly found on menus, at fancy, high society tea parlors and big cities. Now believe me, I know plenty of people are allergic to peanuts. And more, including one person in my house, simply don't like peanut butter. But overall, peanut butter was a total game changer. It's been a great journey so far and I'm feeling a little hungry. I made it guys peanut butter, sliced bread, jelly, they're all great by themselves, especially when you eat them with your hands. But when you put them together, things really go to another level. Yeah, it's a great example of the saying, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think it's time for final assembly, everybody. Peanut butter, jelly time, peanut butter, jelly time. It was 1901, before sliced bread. And around the time that the Welches were perfecting their grape-alayed recipe. Something was brewing. The times they were a change in. And as the calendars turned and the history books moved on from the 1800s to the 1900s, an earth-shattering revolution took root. And the first sprout came in the pages of a magazine called The Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. This was a magazine, one of several at the time, that printed recipes for the public to try out and hopefully enjoy. Thanks to the changes in transportation and industrialization, more foods were available to more curious tongues than ever. So people were eager to hear from experts and experimenters. And new ideas came on the printed page. This magazine seems to have been aimed at upper-scale homes and parlors, as it was filled with tips for the kitchen and home in general. Many of its readers were just the type who needed new sandwiches to serve at afternoon teas and fancy parties. And so came our fateful recipe. The author was a woman named Julia David Chandler. Here's how she laid it out. For variety, someday try making little sandwiches or bread fingers of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and current or crab apple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious and so far as I know, original. Peanut paste, crab apple jelly, and bread. There you go. But did you catch one detail? That's right. Three pieces of bread. If you want to recreate the original recipe of the PB and J, you're going to put the PB on one piece of bread. The J, on another, and then put a third piece of bread in between them, like a big mac or a club sandwich. But since this was written before that marvelous bread slicing machine, that of course meant that people had to slice all of that bread themselves. So if you want to be 100% accurate, find some crab apple jelly, a serrated knife, and start cutting, buster. But there's another important detail to point out here. Julia said the recipe as far as she knew was her own original recipe. Here's the thing about historians. The only proof they have to go on is documentation. Surviving writings, photos, menus, physical objects, or other primary source material, those are how we can piece together the facts and timelines of the past. Is it reasonable to assume that before 1901 someone, somewhere, smeared peanut paste and jelly on bread that they squished together? Yeah, totally, that's reasonable. There are a lot of people with good ideas, and hey, they all have the same tongues that we have, so sure, someone could have foreseen the deliciousness that awaited them? Totally. But if they did, they didn't rent it down. Or maybe they did write it down, but it got thrown away or destroyed. If so, we'll never know. Of course, there's always a chance that there is some proof of another PB&J timeline out there, undiscovered that someone could stumble upon. Who knows, some historians' discovery could change everything we know about PB&J history. But nothing is going to change the fact that millions of people find it to be delicious, economical, and easy. Currently, the earliest documented proof we have of a peanut butter and jelly is Julia David Chandler in 1901, so she's going to get the credit. Congrats to her. And congrats to us, because since that fancy tea sandwich recipe, the PB&J has grown in popularity. And popularity started by making big fans of soldiers in the American Army. All of the necessary ingredients were standard rations for soldiers during World War II. And by and large, they agreed. It was a delicious combo. When they returned, their taste buds didn't change. They didn't disappear, so they returned with a taste for this sandwich, and sales of the ingredients kept climbing. It's also worth pointing out that the ingredients are pretty cheap compared to other things on your grocery shelves. So that's always been a big plus for the old PB&J. But perhaps the biggest boon to the rise of the PB&J is that they are simple. This sandwich, thanks to the three simple and easily available ingredients, was one of the first foods that was not just delicious, but easy enough that a kid could head into the kitchen and assemble one all on their own without any adult supervision. Each year's for the PB&J. Well alright, that's episode 114 of The Past and the Curious. I am and have been and will continue to be mixed, Elevon. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that even if you don't like or eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, this was a fun educational experience for you, and you got something from it. And if it was the knowledge of Great Delayed, which was one of my favorite takeaways. You know what? I am so happy that my friends from Tumble were a part of this. This was kicked off by them reaching out to me. And Marshall and Lindsay, the science podcast Tumble, is a huge, it's always been a huge inspiration to me. I love what they do, so it's really cool that I get to be friends with the people who I admire so much. And we get to share our love of knowledge with everyone. So Marshall, Lindsay, anything to add? Well Mick, thanks so much for having us on and we're going to go get a quick bite to eat. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for having us and telling us all about peanut butter and jelly so we can appreciate it so much more. And I'll let you know when my celery crop comes in and I can do something about ants on a log. Remember, I promise, I'm sure that's bound to be one of my best episodes most listened to ever, right? Anyway, let's thank Patreon people. I'm going to call back actually to last month because one of the Patreon, thank you sponsorships, was sent out to Anders, Stangeland in Canada. And I have since learned or been reminded of the fact that Anders did the UF 30 seconds about a jock plant. To keep things international though, we're going to go to another hemisphere, Ben and Lucy Schwartz. Hello in Australia. Hello from Kentucky. I am super excited that you're out there. I'm super excited that you enjoy the show. And hello to you. I hope 2026 is going great. And we're going to keep it in the same hemisphere. Sasha Wright in New Zealand. What is going on? I love this. I love everyone down there. This is fantastic. And cool information that I know about Sasha Wright is that you live near about an hour away from where Richard Pierce flew that plane in New Zealand that we did an episode about. So how cool is that? I love it. Love it. Love it. So have to thank Joni Cutler and Celebration Florida. Joni, let's celebrate my friend. Thanks a million Joni. I really hope you enjoyed this show. And the last but not least, y'all, I got to send out a thank you, a shout out to Matthew Haini and Washington DC. Matthew, I am so glad that you are listening to the show too. You know, you're around history all the time. I bet you have some pretty awesome field trips in your life. It's one of the things I've always wondered about. I bet it would be awesome. Matthew Haini, thank you so much. Oh, wait, and how could I forget? There's a birthday that I need to say. Happy birthday to someone. Jude, coaches in Washington State. Happy birthday. I know it's just a couple of weeks away. I hope you have a really good one. And everyone else out there, thank you too. If you want to support the show, all you have to do is tell somebody about it. So go for it. And I'll leave you with this. I'm going to be launching a Kickstarter very soon for a new book. So I hope that makes you happy. And I think you'll love the book, I really do. So just be on the lookout for that announcement. It's coming down the pipeline very soon. If you are hearing this in real time, I hope to see you either in Owingsville, Kentucky, for the 150th anniversary of the Kentucky Meets Show or I want to see you in Boston on April 26th. I will be there that day. It's a Sunday at noon for that podcast festival that I always have such a joy doing. So thank you all very much. Please be well. Please find love where you can.