Peanut Butter and Jelly: Facts About This American Classic

If you're packing up a picnic basket for a breezy summer outing, chances are good that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich will find its way inside. And why not? PB&J is among the cheapest sandwiches you can make, packs in a substantial amount of protein, and satisfies picky kids and nostalgic adults alike. But like most classics, this lunch-box mainstay has a long backstory. Here are some interesting tidbits about one of America's favorite foods — and we promise they won't stick to the roof of your mouth. 

(Hungry for more food trivia? Here are Things You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Childhood Cereals.)

While it's possible home cooks may have enjoyed PB&Js for years before, the first recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich appeared in a Boston Cooking School magazine in 1901. Written by Julia Davis Chandler, it called for crab-apple jelly, not grape, and was considered a relatively upper-crust treat given peanut butter's exclusivity at the time.

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Both peanut butter and jelly were a staple of soldiers' ration menus during World War II, so it was only natural that GIs began to combine the two, and the sandwich exploded in popularity after the war. Peanut butter, often called "monkey butter" by soldiers, was particularly favored on the battlefield because it was a cheaper source of protein than meat and wouldn't easily spoil.

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A 2016 survey by Peter Pan found that Americans will eat an average of 2,984 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which works out to about three a month for roughly 83 years. That might not sound like a lot, but a stack of those sandwiches would still eclipse the Statue of Liberty.

Competitive eater Patrick Bertoletti once downed six peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in one minute — a whole sandwich every 10 seconds — to clinch a Guinness World Record in 2012. Bertoletti holds at least 30 eating records and has even downed 444 chicken wings in a half-hour.

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If you slather your PB&J with crunchy peanut butter, you're in the minority. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed by Peanut Butter & Co. in 2019 reported that they like their peanut butter smooth, while 29% prefer crunchy and 20% will happily eat both. Personality-wise, Team Smooth is more introverted than Team Crunchy, according to the survey, as well as more punctual.

To say that NBA players love peanut butter and jelly is an understatement. The sandwiches, which became a pregame ritual for the Boston Celtics as they rolled to a national championship in 2008, have become a staple in locker rooms across the country, according to ESPN. Several years later, when a nutrition expert with the Golden State Warriors tried to ban the high-sugar sandwiches, two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry led a successful revolt. 

Related: What Tom Brady and Other Athletes Eat for Breakfast

Do you put peanut butter on one slice of bread, jelly on the other, and slap your sandwich together? Or do you spread peanut butter and jelly onto the same slice of bread? A very unscientific poll of Twitter users proclaims the former method the winner by a wide margin.

More than 1,000 volunteers at Temple University slapped together 49,100 peanut butter sandwiches in one hour in 2016, earning a Guinness World Record. The effort blew away the previous record, 39,303 sandwiches, using 4,475 pounds of peanut butter, 3,800 pounds of jelly, and 1,875 loaves of bread. Sandwiches were donated to local food banks and shelters.

J.M. Smuckers, maker of the lunch-box-friendly Uncrustables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, probably figured it had little to lose by patenting a "sealed crustless sandwich" in late 1999. It didn't take long for a smaller company to challenge the patent, touching off a legal battle that made Smuckers an easy target for mockery. The company lost its patent in 2005, when a federal appeals court decided that the crustless sandwich was "not novel or non-obvious enough." Still, Uncrustables have faced few major competitors, and Smuckers has expanded the line to include non-PB&J offerings such as taco bites, chicken bites, and turkey and cheese.

Astronauts like peanut butter and jelly as much as anyone, of course, so PB&J is a staple aboard the International Space Station. Of course, it's made a little differently without gravity to aid the process. Instead of two fluffy pieces of bread, astronauts use a simpler tortilla as a base. Squeezable jelly aids in the process, as does a system of Velcro and tape to keep jars and utensils from floating away during the sandwich-making process.

"It's peanut butter jelly time!" If that phrase makes you giggle in recognition, congratulations — you've probably been an internet user for approaching 20 years. For reasons unknown, a pixelated banana that danced to "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" by the Buckwheat Boyz became an internet phenomenon in 2002. It's been a pop-culture staple ever since, popping up in an episode of "Family Guy," the video game "Fortnite," on T-shirts, and plenty of other places.

Don't count on getting your peanut butter and jelly fix when you go abroad. Though the peanut butter industry has tried mightily to expand its international clout, a jar of the stuff remains hard to find in many other countries where local tastes have relegated it to a novelty at best. China, where Skippy has a factory, seems to offer the best hope for Americans to export one of its favorite addictions.

Related: The True Origins of Classic “American” Foods

Shortly before becoming president, Bush proclaimed in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that PB&J on white bread was his favorite sandwich. Not long after taking office, the 43rd president put his peanut butter where his mouth was, adding peanut butter and jelly to the menu at the White House Mess, a basement dining room open to executive-branch officials. Guests could choose from grape, strawberry, or raspberry jelly.

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The King of Rock 'n' Roll was served a sandwich called The Fool's Gold at a Denver restaurant in the '70s. Made from a loaf of sourdough, peanut butter, blueberry jam, and bacon, the baked sandwich so enamored Elvis that he later flew to Denver from Memphis solely to pick one up for daughter Lisa Marie's birthday.  

Related: Surprising Facts About Elvis and Graceland

Ellen DeGeneres famously ordered pizza for members of the audience at the Oscars in 2014. Following in her footsteps, Jimmy Kimmel helped hand out 7,000 PB&Js, many made by his own mother, at the 2016 Emmy Awards. Some lucky celebrities also got juice boxes and handwritten notes from Kimmel's mom with their snack.

PB&J With Tay opened in San Antonio in 2019 and serves about a dozen versions of the sandwich including The Kitchen Sink, made with peanut butter, jelly, Nutella, cream cheese, bacon, banana, walnuts, and coconut flakes on Texas toast. Feeling a little more fancy? Head to PBJ.LA in Los Angeles for a high-brow version such as the Superfood, featuring cacao nib almond butter and acai or goji berry jam. There's also PeeBeeJays in Aurora, Illinois, where choices include The Swervin' Irvin, made with strawberry lemonade jam and toffee crunch peanut butter.

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No, we're not talking about people with peanut allergies, though that's a very real reason to keep some distance from a PB&J. There are also people with arachibutyrophobia, which is a documented fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Symptoms can include heart palpitations, nausea, sweating, tremors, and a "strong fight-or-flight response," according to Healthline.

Tired of pulling a soggy PB&J out of your bagged lunch just a few hours after making it? The secret to keeping that moist jelly from seeping through the bread is simple: Put the peanut butter on both slices of bread, then layer jelly in between, according to Lifehacker.

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