One of my funniest memories is overhearing a British dude who had obviously just come home from visiting the States explaining the PB&J to his friends. They were absolutely aghast.

In Britain "jelly" is Jello

Yeah, he described it as “peanut butter and jam.”

When I was a kid, my mum would get us to eat celery sticks by filling the U channel with peanut butter.

Sounds like 'ants on a log' without the raisins.

So would that just be a log?

It's log, log, log It's log, it's log It's big, it's heavy, it's wood It's log, it's log It's better than bad, it's good

I sang that recently in front of some likely similar aged friends and none recalled this great tune. I was disappointed.

Everyone wants a log

Everyone needs a Log™

This is correct

Gimme dat log

The LONG way

Making ants on a log in kindergarten is a core memory of mine.

Mmm, snackin on some logs

When I was a kid, back in the late '50s, one of my dad's go-to sandwiches was PB, cheese, and a thick slab of onion. For real!

That is an absolutely lovely mental image. Thanks for sharing that anecdote

Yeah, he ate a lot of weird shit. He spent too much time in the trenches during the '40s.

Yeah, every time I hear some older folks talk about the eating habits they witnessed, you get to hear the wildest stuff. Yours sounds exactly like the stuff they mashed together in Europe after the war.

My Silent Gen grandparents were much the same. They lived through the depression and my grandma could be quite creative. Her favorite was cheese and butter sandwiches. I'm guessing a lot of that had to do with the fact that they had dairy cows, so those things would have been available at the time.

That's just a cheese sandwich. Pretty standard stuff.

Sounds like a grilled cheese

My step-grandfather would eat peanut butter & thousand island dressing sandwiches it was apparently what he would eat when he was drunk as fuck

I wonder how many commonly accepted food dishes were actually results of unintended combinations of ingredients.

I dunno. I'm currently reading through the [list of sandwiches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sandwiches) so I may learn more today.

I mean pb and onion is basically satay sauce.

My dad too. He used the peanut butter (he said) to stop the onions from falling out. "Keeps everything together."

To this day, I make PCP sandwiches - peanut butter, pickle, and cheese

My dad still has this sandwich in his lunch two out of his four work days! He was born in the 60's.

Now I've gotta try this abomination. The PBCO sandwich.

Not about PB but hear me out for a moment. Celery with cream cheese and diced olives, it sounds crazy but it works.

That doesn't really seem too crazy, I feel like that's all stuff I've found in my cream cheese before

Want crazy? I do tuna, mayo, BBQ sauce, onions, olives, celery, garlic, and Parmesan cheese... On a sandwich, with sharp cheddar. The BBQ sauce throws everyone, but it's a tangy sweet that goes well with the other flavors. Equal parts mayo and BBQ (about 1/3 cup total), with Parm as a thickener at the end to get a thick consistency. I've also been known to make it without the veggies and cheddar.

I love this. Also celery with soft spreadable cheese.

That was a staple snack my grandparents would give me, but I would eat any vegetable anyways. Only thing I wouldn’t eat as a kid were brussel sprouts, that was until I tried them roasted.

Supposedly brussel sprouts have been cultures to remove the unpleasant bitterness so modern sprouts taste very different from sprouts from say the 80s

Growing up in Canada, we always had peanut butter and jam. Jelly has no seeds or texture, and not nearly as delicious.

Hell yeah. Gimme some jam. If I'm feeling really feisty I'll even go with marmalade.

Marmalade and PB is delicious!

Do you know the difference between jam and jelly?

I can’t jelly a SFW punchline into this joke.

I think you just did. Well done lol. 

One is fruit while the others juice however in the uk jelly is gelatin

I've had this conversation with enough non Americans that at this point I've just taken a picture of Welch's jelly and jam next to each other to prove we have both variants here. Americans also interchangeably use jelly to refer to gelatin, jam, and all forms of preserves. If you're staying in America and want the closest form of a European jam, ask for preserves with or without whole fruit.

There's preserves, jam, and jelly. Preserves are whole fruit, mashed, cooked down, with sugar and some pectin to thicken and keep bacteria growth down. Jam is processed fruit (chopped or blended) subjected to the same treatment. Jelly is processed fruit boiled down then strained through cheesecloth, then reheated and sugar + pectin is added. Oh, generally some form of citric acid is added (lemon or lime juice usually) in small amounts to drop the pH levels, also discouraging microbial growth.

Smooth or crunchy PB and strawberry or raspberry jam though? My personal favourite is crunchy and strawberry.

I suppose it's the same across most Commonwealth countries but jelly is different. I'm in Australia but we do have a lot of similarities to the UK from what I've seen living there for half a year. Jam is spread on bread and contains fruit with lots of sugar. Jelly is what we eat in a bowl as a desert, usually set with gelatin or agar. I think it's called jello in the US, I'm not sure. I haven't come across any jelly spreads yet which seem to be almost the same as our jam but using only the fruit juice. We don't seem to have an equivalent.

One of the top WW2 British spies was Eddie Chapman, basically a local gangster who was originally known as the leader of the "Jelly Gang." Which sounds like a school yard gang shaking down other kids for their lunch money. Except jelly was short for gelignite/gelatine. They used that to blow up safes.

North America, jelly is made with fruit juice and jam is made with the whole fruit.

Jam is what I prefer to use on my PBJs.

In everywhere else in the world other than the US “jello” is “jelly”

Explaining PB&J to my European friends was hysterical. Like, it's delicious what could possibly be wrong with it? All of them, awful contorted faces, like I explained eating boiled chocolate pancreases.

> eating boiled chocolate pancreases. Not too different from Nutella. It's oil+sugar that is accidently contaminated with cocoa and hazelnut.

And delicious!

r/brandnewsentence

Huh, it never occurred to me that British people didn't do peanut butter and jelly. 

Never seen it here in France either. I doubt it's common anywhere in Europe.

In Europe Nutella is kind of replacing it in the "I want something quick to make and sweet" spot. Nutella tried to pierce in the US but couldn't really because they were competing with peanut butter. Which is cheaper and much healthier (peanuts are a legume, so contain a bunch of protein, while Nutella is packed with sugar).

Peanut butter AND Nutella though is a god tier sweet sandwich though. Brothers peanut butter and Nutella need not be enemies. There is room for both on God's bountiful pleasant sandwich

Peanut butter, hazelnut spread and sliced fresh banana and a glass of milk are my favorite quick meal from my pantry before working out. Its a fairly healthy meal if youre about to workout for a few hours and need a quick sugar boost.

Add banana

But peanut butter isn't sweet (or shouldn't be). The 2 are norhing alike.

Of course they taste nothing alike. But they're both spreads. People often eat them when they're hungry but don't want to make any real food.

It’s not especially common, but it’s not unheard of - we had them occasionally when I was growing up in the mid-90s in the UK.

I am really surprised at the replies to this! I am from the UK and have been eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches since the 90s, my wife the same. Perhaps it's a regional thing? I am from South West England. Absolutely delicious!

That makes sense. Your a pampered southerner obviously. Up north we are raised on coal sandwiches without bread after walking 5 miles up hill in both directions to work 25 hours a day 8 days a week.

There was an episode of the British Bake Off or something like that where a candidate paired peanut butter with some jam I think. The judge actually said seriously something along the lines of "Peanut butter and jam? What an odd idea!". Maybe he was just pretending to make the Americans laugh, but the whole idea that a food critic could think that...

Neither did I until I moved here. My boyfriend was perplexed at my introduction of PB&J, and he showed me the way with peanut butter on toast/crumpets with chunks of cheddar. Amazing breakfast or snack.

Yeah it’s really an uniquely USA thing. It’s not normal for any country in Europe.

Maybe in Norway, were you eating rotten shark on toast it's rare. In the UK it's pretty common.

It’s also not a thing in Australia - those favours seem odd to put together guys

Although as a Canadian who has had many peanut butter and jam sandwiches in my 50+ years of life I recently found out (on Reddit, lol) about your Fairy Bread and it looks intriguing....here in Canada sprinkles are used on certain cookies with icing, or on cake. Would have never thought of this combination!

Fairy bread is really just for children's parties though. It isn't an everyday food.

I had pbj as a kid in Australia. J being Jam, of course. Often with cheese, too.

Protip No one else in the world does fluff with peanut butter

Pretty sure that's just an northern east coast thing here in the US.

I've never had peanut butter and mallow creme together.

Fluffernutters!  I think this is definitely true haha

When I lived in Ireland, I made my Irish friends try PB&J when we were at a music festival. They were amazed.

Says the folks who willingly eat Marmite

I can’t remember the season, but there was an episode of Great British Bake Off where one of the contestant couldn’t think of a way to combine Peanut Butter with jam

Is their peanut butter sweet?

You can usually get either salty or sweet, but I'd say salty is more common

How long ago was that? I've been eating Peanut butter and jam sandwiches in the UK as far back as 1985. I'd not heard of the American's PB&J sandwich until my aunty had gone over to Canada for a couple of years and came back with lots of American and Canadian goodies for us. I do like a peanut butter and cheese sandwich too though. My favourite when I was a kid however, was like this: bread cheese spread (usually Primula, or a Dairylea triangle) pickled onions peanut butter (crunchy) hazelnut chocolate spread (usually Nutella) cheddar cheese beetroot tomato ketchup bread It was a large sandwich, but tasted delicious.

Bro what the fuck 😭

I hope you're aware that sandwich is a literal food crime. You should be looking at 5-10 years for even typing out that abomination of a recipe.

Also, the original recipe called for 3 layers of bread

Child me was all about the double decker pbj

double decker anything. Scooby doo had me wanting more.

Tasting History has a good episode on the older version with 3 bread and all that

That's actuallyHow I always do it. The middle layer helps keep the sandwich from falling apart and getting soggy from jelly sitting in a lunchbox all day

Just spread peanut butter on both slices and then jelly in between. The PB is a layer of fat that waterproofs the bread slices so the jelly doesn't soak in!

I like to go : Bread Peanut butter Jelly Bread Jelly Peanut butter Bread The middle slice of bread soaks in all that jelly by design and the peanut butter layers protect the outer bread just like you say. So perfect.

The moistmaker!

“MYYYYYYYYY SANDWICH?!”

You are fucking insane. I must try this.

I was so curious about the Worcestershire sauce that just I went and mixed them together. Surprisingly tasty. Tasted like peanut butter but with quite a nice tangy aftertaste.

It basically heads down the route of Thai or Vietnamese flavor. Worcestershire is similar to a fish sauce.

Worcestershire does have fermented anchovies in it

It is made from fermented anchovies and tamarind after all

Worcestershire IS a fish sauce

I read once Worcestershire sauce was a failed attempt at emulating fish sauce.

Worcestershire sauce in mayonnaise is a game changer too!

...well someone is adventurous, just listening to a random reddit post

Sounds less adventurous than mixing it with jelly. Sorry I'm probably too European for this post.

you damn euros you need to have yourself a proper PB&J

I respect your gumption. Not wild reactionary, just straight up, well, I will never know unless I try

I'll be trying out a Peanut Butter and Worcestershire sauce sandwich now. But growing up, Peanut Butter and Celery was a common snack for me.

Throw in some raisins and you’ve got ants on a log.

Craisins for red ants!

It’s probably not bad. It’s pretty similar to the ingredients of pad Thai.

>But growing up, Peanut Butter and Celery was a common snack for me. Same here. I've got a hankering for it now.

Peanut butter and chip chip ham is good too.

add some raisins and it's ants on a log

We serve our daughter a sliced apple with peanut butter and it’s an awesome snack

Y’all are mad 😂

My sister dated a guy who was French Guyanese, and he was visibly upset at the thought of a PB and J, but he fucked us up with some peanut butter chicken stew. Maffe was a culinary awakening for a 12 year old Pennsylvania Dutch kid.

My grandma (dad's side) is from South America. The first time my mom was over there, she made peanut butter chicken. My mom pretended to eat, then got McDonald's on the way home.

I would have loved to try that.

The world is so big, I always find it too bad when people decide to make their own world so small

Yeah but don’t take PA food for granted either. Most people don’t know about Lebanon bologna or PA Dutch “potpie” (different than regular pot pie), and a ton of other really good stuff. I moved away from PA a few years ago and there’s just some things that you can’t get elsewhere, or people just don’t get it right. Don’t get me started on the “cheesesteaks” that other places try to pass off.

Across America, “Philly Style”-anything has become synonymous with “we added green peppers.” It’s baffling. Philadelphians have no idea where that came from.

Green bell peppers are a dutchie special, we don't let our peppers ripen enough. Probably our fault.

Oh I worship pa dutch food. Pa dutch pot pie is fuckin amazing. We were chicken pot pie people but I've now had ham pot pie and it's heavenly too. Lebanon bologna is fire. Dutchie food is the best.

Originally originally.

Throw a spoonful of peanut butter in your morning oatmeal. Life-changing.

Add banana to that and you have my usual breakfast. Sometimes I’ll add milk and then make a smoothie out of it.

I make PB&J oatmeal with PB2 powder & cherry preserves.

Fuck I thought I had peanut buttered everything that can be peanut buttered.

Soak your PB&J in beaten egg and have it French toast style.

LOL…is that a recommendation from experience, or are you just riffing?

My new favorite, even my kids like it.

I will have to give that a shot.

PB & Vegemite in oatmeal is my go-to.

PB, chia, brown sugar, tablespoon of cream

I had a peanut butter and grits once that was surprisingly incredible.

Been doing this fir a while, love it!

>The first known reference for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine in 1901 It's surprisingly recent.

Peanut butter as we know it had only existed for a couple decades before that.

Thanks to ([if history is to be believed](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0965720/)) George Washington Carver

YEAH STEVE THE MONOCLE

Most of the foods we recognize are relatively recent inventions. I don’t think I could’ve survived the disgusting shit they ate hundreds of years ago

Hmm idk Lincoln eating a PBJ seems wrong

PB and Honey is even better.

I do this but also add banana slices. I call it a "Keanu with Banana". (A "Keanu" being just pb and honey without the banana slices.)

Oooooh…add Nutella and have a Keanutella with Banana

Fry it in butter and you have an Elvis.

I feel like that's a missed opportunity for a Baneanu.

I've been making PB and banana with honey sandwiches ever since I was a kid and never knew there was a name for the PB and honey part. Might start calling them Keanunanas, lol!

I remember syrup sandwiches

Yeah I was poor too.

And crime allowances

I ate a PB and honey sandwhich every day for lunch as a kid for like 5 straight years. I was a horribly picky eater, and it's the only thing I'd eat. I still make them for myself on the weekend.

PB and cream cheese is also very good.

Banana has entered the chat.

When I was dieting, one of the snacks they said to try was a slice of bread with a mixture of peanut butter, honey and wheat germ on it.  Top 5 snack for me too this day. So good, and way better than jelly. 

In what world is that a diet food though?!

I don't remember the specific diet, but it was from Dr. Ian Smith about 20 years ago. While the diet on the whole is probably not great, snacks like that (in small amounts, like 1-2 tops, were *wayyyyyyy* better for me than the snacks I was eating at the time.

TIL that Fred Savage’s character in Little Monsters having a thing for peanut butter and onion sandwiches is, historically speaking, (slightly) less disturbing a pairing than I had always thought..

Peanut butter & savoury things seems more normal to me than peanut butter and jam tbh. Edit: maybe I should add that peanut butter is more savoury/salty where I'm from, compared to (American) sweet pb

I have a friend from Ecuador and he said his biggest culture shock in the US was eating peanut butter. He didn't expect it to be sweet. They have peanut butter in Ecuador but it's savory and salty.

There’s plenty of peanut butters in the US that don’t have sugar added and are therefore savory and salty. Even Jif and Smuckers and so on have versions without added sugar. Just about every grocery store you should be able to find peanut butter with just about any combo of the following (besides peanuts, obviously): salt, sugar, palm oil. Just look at the back of each jar. There’s ones with salt and oil but no sugar, salt and sugar but no oil, etc.

The peanut butter we buy is roasted peanuts and salt. Nothing else, and none better.

And in the US we have that, too. The grocery store I go to has 38 options for peanut butter. Six are just peanuts and salt. Two are peanuts and nothing else. That's only peanut butter, not including all of the other nut butters in that section. Edit: Worth mentioning is that many of these options call themselves "peanut butter spread." I'm guessing the added oil gives it a looser consistency straight out of the fridge.

I just get mine at WinCo. They have a machine that grinds roasted peanuts. Nothing else added. Cheap too. Think I paid 2.28 per pound last week.

I do peanut butter and cheese. I didn’t know other people didn’t

Yeah get a sharp cheddar with it, it’s great

I'm always surprised when people are surprised at savoury uses for peanut butter.

I like peanut butter on my cheeseburgers.

I love PB and Vegemite on toast.

Peanut butter bacon and onion fucking rocks

If you've never had a peanut butter and pickle sandwich you're missing out!

I hate pickles

One of my favorite burgers is a breakfast burger that has beef, cheese, fried egg, bacon, and peanut butter. My spouse won't go near it.

Lots of East Asian dishes use peanut butter and crunchy peanuts for like peanut sauce noodles or spicy peanut sauce pork dumplings.

The first time I had an incredible peanut sauce in a Thai restaurant changed my mind forever. Peanut butter absolutely deserves more savory preparations. I think it’s ripe for invention. It can’t only be grape jelly and chocolate. Surely there can be more!

So... What would you call a PB&J-sandwich without PB and J? . . . . . . . . An ampersandwich....

Peanut butter and Bovril is a fine combination.

Bovril, marmite, vegwmite, promite, better than bullion... take your regionally available pick. Excellent paired with PB.

"Peanut butter was originally paired with a diverse set of savory foods, such as pimento, cheese, celery, Worcestershire sauce, watercress, saltines and toasted crackers.[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter_and_jelly_sandwich#cite_note-3) In a [*Good Housekeeping*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Housekeeping) article published in May 1896, a recipe "urged homemakers to use a meat grinder to make peanut butter and spread the result on bread." The following month, the culinary magazine *Table Talk* published a "peanut butter sandwich" recipe.^(")

Peanut butter and sambal. Thank me later.

Peanut butter and Marmite. Do it.

Works great with Marmite.

Was it originally original or originally originally original? No one knows - yet.

My favorite hamburgers have peanut butter.

I’ve been eating peanut butter and cheese sandwiches since I was a kid. I’m glad to know I’m not weird, I’m just historically accurate.

Don’t discount the savory thing. I love a toasted PB and minced Thai Chili spread sandwich.

I forgot about that tasty pairing! 

Shocking discovery: Salty and Savory flavors meld well together?! More at 11

I often make a cheese and peanutbutter sandwich. I’m from the Netherlands however so the cheese is eatable

It's strange, to me, to think about a pbj as an 'invention'. It seems more like an innovation than anything. Like yachts aren't really an invention; just big, fancy boats

PB and kosher dill pickle sandwich is incredible. Especially with the refrigerated ones from the grocery. The pickle juice makes the PB less sticky, the PB tones down the acid hit of the Pickle, and you get an intense savory peanut flavor. 10/10

Peanut Butter is one of those spreads that goes with damn near anything.

I still love peanut butter on a hamburger

Peanut butter and tomato paste soup. Americans are weird, man...

PB and Honey is great too. And bananas of course.

PB & Cheese is an awesome protein bomb. And it’s even better toasted.

I have to reconcile this when I realized that the peanut sauce I love in Asian restaurants was basically peanut butter for savory food

Three hardest things to say I was wrong I love you Worcestershire sauce

Peanut Butter and cheese has always been a favorite sandwich of mine; I’ve strongly preferred it over PB&J.