Ok, this one has been bothering me for quite a while and I really need professional help from people living in the USA for this one.
You know, there is hardly any Hollywood movie without mention of peanut butter and jelly (PB&J) sandwiches and since I’m living in Europe, it got me curious what’s all the fuss about it and why Americans eat it so much. So, I got myself some toast bread, some peanut butter and some jelly (we kinda call it jam around here).
I’ve spread both ingredients on the bread, slammed it together and after biting into it, I just couldn’t get it why Americans are so obsessed about it. I’ve even tried different ratios of both ingredients with same outcome. The best one was with no peanut butter at all. I mean, I love peanuts, salty, spicy, in Snickers chocolate bar, in normal chocolate without caramel or even natural one that you have to peel it yourself. It’s good stuff. But when you pair it with jam, it just doesn’t compute. I’ve even watched some stuff on Youtube if I was doing something wrong and apparently I wasn’t.
Where’s the catch? Can someone help me “debug” my PB&J sandwiches please?
Jam / jelly:
The jam that I’ve used was a really high grade stuff with very (really very) high fruit content with really rich flavor. It still tastes sweet though like it should.
Peanut butter:
Peanut butter is the smooth one without any peanut bits in it. There was also version with bits, but I’ve decided for the smooth version. It’s not greasy, it’s kinda pasty, almost like when you chop nuts so hard in the food processor that it turns them into a paste. It’s pasty, non greasy but spreads really easily. And the one that I have is slightly salty. I’ve tried some other and it was salty as well, so I’m guessing that’s how it should be.
I can kinda see jam and peanut butter combined if the later would be either neutral (no salt) or even slightly sugary. But sweet jam and salty peanut butter just don’t go together for me (at all). It just doesn’t work for me and I’ve tried quite some variations.
So, please educate me on what I’m doing so horribly wrong here.
Thx
Angry Sheep Blog 