Peanut butter

• 1. Introduction

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  In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, retail sales of peanut butter in the United States rose by 75% compared with March 2019. The jar in question holds a paste of ground, dry-roasted peanuts, often with salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers added to adjust the taste or texture. Peanut butter is the most widely used of the nut butters, a family that also includes cashew butter and almond butter. People eat it in many countries, usually spread on bread, toast, or crackers. Yet the story behind the jar is stranger than a pantry staple suggests. Who first ground a peanut into paste? Why did one European country refuse to let the product be called butter? And what happens to a peanut between the field and the sealed lid?

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• 2. Paste Before Patents

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  The earliest references to peanut butter lead back to the Aztec and Inca civilizations, who ground roasted peanuts into a paste. The Bainbridge Post-Searchlight reports that Aztecs in the 16th century used peanut paste to soothe aching gums.

  By 1783, a relative of the modern spread was already being eaten in Suriname. It was called pinda-dokkunnu, which means peanut cheese in Sranan Tongo. This version was firmer than today's jars, firm enough to be cut into slices like cheese.

  A soup-like peanut dish named pinda bravoe existed in Suriname around the same time. Because Suriname was then a Dutch colony, the Dutch word for peanut butter still carries the old idea. It is pindakaas, which also means peanut cheese.

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• 3. The Patent Race

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  In 1884, Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec, received the first patent for making peanut butter from roasted peanuts on heated surfaces. His application described a milling process that took the nuts to "a fluid or semi-fluid state". Once cooled, the result had "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment". He mixed in sugar to firm it up. The U.S. National Peanut Board credits three modern inventors with the earliest patents, and Edson is one of them.

  A St. Louis businessman named George Bayle sold peanut butter as a snack food in 1894. Four years later, on the 24th of May 1898, John Harvey Kellogg was issued a patent for a "Process of Producing Alimentary Products". Kellogg, famous for his breakfast cereals, believed plant foods were a healthier choice than meat. He boiled his peanuts instead of roasting them.

  At Kellogg's Western Health Reform Institute, patients received peanut butter because it delivered a lot of protein and needed no chewing. Because it first appeared at costly health care institutes, it began as a food for the wealthy. Joseph Lambert, who had worked at Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, helped develop early machines for making it. Dr. Ambrose Straub patented his own peanut-butter-making machine in 1903.

  George Washington Carver is often credited as the inventor, but he did not invent peanut butter. In 1916 he published a document titled "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption". By then, pharmacists, doctors, and food scientists in the United States and Canada had already developed or patented many preparation methods.

  The year after Carver's document, American households were leaning on peanut products during meat rationing. Government promotions of "meatless Mondays" made peanut butter a favored choice, and the wealthy invalid's food became a household one.

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• 4. Brands Take Over

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  In 1922, the chemist Joseph L. Rosefield invented a way to make smooth peanut butter whose oil would not separate. His trick was partially hydrogenated oil. In 1928 he licensed the process to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter.

  Rosefield began making his own peanut butter in 1932 under the name Skippy. He developed a churning method that gave the creamy style an even smoother consistency. He also stirred fragments of peanuts into the paste, which produced the first chunky-style peanut butter.

  Procter & Gamble launched Jif in 1955. Its recipe used sugar and molasses, so it tasted sweeter than rival brands.

  Far from American kitchens, a South African firm named Alderton Limited made that country's first peanut butter in 1926. The factory stood in Potgietersrus, now called Mokopane. The product sold so well that Tiger Brands, then known as the Tiger Oats Company, took over production under the name Black Cat. Tiger Brands still makes it today.

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• 5. From Field to Jar

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  Peanuts are usually planted in spring, and the plant has a curious habit. After its yellow flower blooms and wilts, the flower bends over and pushes into the soil. The peanut then grows underground. Harvest runs from late August to October, when clear weather keeps the soil dry and stops dirt clinging to stems and pods. Workers strip the nuts from the vines and send them to a shelling machine for mechanical drying. Afterward the unshelled peanuts go to warehouses for cleaning and are stored in silos.

  Shelling demands care so the seeds are not damaged. Plant operators control the moisture of the unshelled peanuts so the shells and kernels do not turn too brittle, which also cuts dust. Rollers set for each batch crack the shells. A screening step then checks for contaminants.

  Dry roasting uses either a batch or a continuous method. In the batch method, a revolving oven heats large quantities of peanuts at about 800 F. Each batch is then held at 320 F for 40 to 60 minutes. This suits peanuts with uneven moisture. The continuous method rocks the peanuts through a hot air roaster, and a photometer signals when roasting is complete. Large manufacturers prefer it because it lowers spoilage and needs less labor.

  Peanuts leave the roaster as quickly as possible and go into a blower-cooler cylinder, where suction fans pull large volumes of air through. Cooling keeps some oil and moisture, so the nuts do not dry out. The job is done when the cylinder reaches 86 F.

  Blanching strips off the remaining seed coats, and water blanching is the newer way to do it, first appearing in 1949. In heat blanching, hot air at 280 F softens and splits the skins in no more than 20 minutes. Steam follows, then bristles or soft rubber belts remove the skins, which are blown into waste bags.

  Water blanching runs the kernels past sharp stationary blades that crack the skins on opposite sides. A one-minute hot water bath follows. The kernels then ride a swinging, canvas-topped pad that rubs the skins off. They are dried for at least six hours with air at 120 F. Screening, a blower, and a color sorting machine then remove burnt, rotten, light, and discolored nuts.

  The cleaned peanuts pass through two grinders, the first giving a medium grind and the second a fine one. Salt, sugar, and a vegetable oil stabilizer may go into the fine grind, which keeps the mixture uniform. Chopped peanuts added at this stage make the chunky style.

  Before sealing, the paste is pumped through a heat exchanger that cools it to about 120 F. Filled and labeled jars rest until crystallization occurs. Cartons then carry them to retailers, who keep them at room temperature.

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• 6. Kinds of Jar

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  When peanut butter reached the Dutch market in 1948, it was not allowed to carry that name. The word butter was reserved for real butter, to keep shoppers from confusing it with margarine. The name does borrow from dairy, much as nut milks do. Butter is usually made from cow's milk and processed into a spreadable solid. Peanut butter is not solid at normal room temperature, but it is thick and spreadable. During World War II, a slang term for it was monkey butter.

  Conventional peanut butter contains up to 10% salt, sugars, and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Crunchy or chunky peanut butter includes coarsely ground peanut fragments for texture. Smooth or creamy peanut butter is ground uniformly, sometimes with corn syrup and vegetable oil added, to make a thick, buttery paste.

  Natural peanut butter usually holds only peanuts and a little salt. It has no emulsifiers, so oil and salt can separate slightly, and the jar needs stirring before eating. Organic and artisanal peanut butters make up small markets. The artisanal kind is typically handmade in cottage-industry style, without preservatives or additives, a setup first used around 1970.

  Powdered peanut butter is a lower-calorie alternative. Pressing roasted peanuts removes most of the oil but keeps protein and flavor. Water turns the powder into a paste, or it can go straight into smoothies, protein shakes, and baking.

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• 7. Who Eats It

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  A 2012 article named China and India as the first and second-largest peanut producers, with the United States third. Georgia and Texas are the two major peanut-producing American states. More than half of the American peanut crop becomes peanut butter. The United States is a leading exporter of the spread and one of the largest per-capita consumers, and the 24th of January is National Peanut Butter Day there.

  According to Jon Krampner's 2013 book on peanut butter, Canada and the Netherlands both eat more per person than Americans do. The Netherlands is the largest per-capita consumer in Europe.

  In Israel, a peanut-butter-flavored puffcorn snack called Bamba accounts for 25% of the snack market. Its consumption by infants has been linked to a low incidence of peanut allergies among Israelis.

  A 100 gram portion of smooth peanut butter supplies 597 calories. It is 51% fat, 22% protein, 22% carbohydrates including 5% dietary fiber, and 1% water. Saturated and monounsaturated fats, mainly oleic acid, make up 25% of the total. Polyunsaturated fat, mainly linoleic acid, makes up 12%.

  Peanut butter is a rich source, meaning 20% or more of the Daily Value, of dietary fiber, vitamin E, pantothenic acid, folate, niacin, and vitamin B6. It is also high in manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, and sodium, which arrives as salt during manufacturing. Thiamin, riboflavin, iron, and potassium appear at a moderate 10-19% of the Daily Value.

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• 8. Allergy and Everyday Uses

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  For people with a peanut allergy, a spoonful of peanut butter can set off reactions that include life-threatening anaphylaxis. Some schools have banned it, along with other common foods. Symptoms include shortness of breath, wheezing, tightening of the throat, and itching. Skin reactions such as hives and swelling can occur, and so can digestive problems.

  In the kitchen, the creamy or crunchy, fatty, salty flavor pairs well with soft, sweet partners. Fruit preserves, bananas, apples, chocolate, and honey all work. It also suits oatmeal, cheese, cured meats, and savory sauces, and salty bacon sharpens it further. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the best-known pairing, and the spread also turns up in granola, smoothies, crepes, cookies, brownies, and croissants.

  For children, a snack called "ants on a log" fills the groove of a celery stick with peanut butter and lines raisins along the top as the ants.

  Plumpy'nut, a peanut-butter-based food, is used against malnutrition in famine-stricken countries. A single pack holds 500 calories, keeps for two years without refrigeration, and needs no cooking or preparation.

  Peanut butter packed into a hollow chew toy keeps a dog busy with a flavored treat. A pine cone coated in peanut butter and rolled in seed makes a common outdoor bird feeder.

  Scientists describe the spread as a viscoelastic food, one that shows both solid and fluid behavior. Soft texture, spreadability, and grittiness can be measured more precisely through rheology, the study of how materials flow.

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