What is National Peanut Butter And Jelly Day?
National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, a year-long holiday, honors a classic food favorite. By the time they graduate from high school, the average American will have eaten over 2000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Peanut butter was considered a delicacy in the early 1900s and was only available in New York City's finest tea rooms. A dish "prompted homemakers to use a meat grinder to make peanut butter and spread the word on bread" in a May 1896 article published in the Good Housekeeping magazine. Table Talk, the culinary magazine, published a "peanut butter sandwich dish" earlier this year.
Julia Davis Chandler is believed to have made the first mention of peanut butter (or paste) paired with jelly on bread in the United States in 1901. Her article appears in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. The price of peanut butter declined in the late 1920s, and the sandwich became extremely popular with children.
Both peanut butter and jelly were included in the United States soldiers' military ration list during World War II, according to the Peanut Board.
The J.M. Smucker Co. introduced Goober, a jarred product that combined alternating vertical stripes of peanut butter and jelly in 1968.
