Posted on 09/21/2022 3:59:20 PM PDT by mylife
During the Great Depression, people valued high-calorie combinations of protein and fat. Meat and dairy were costly, and consuming enough energy could prove challenging. Enter peanut butter and mayonnaise on white bread. The combination became a staple in Southern households in the United States and, in some regions, it was as ubiquitous as peanut butter and jelly. For the next 30 years or so, the PB&M was a favorite in many American kitchens, perhaps because adding mayonnaise to the era’s rustic, coarse nut butter may have been key for spreadability. According to Garden & Gun, newspapers from the 1940s in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Troy, New York, both advised adding mayonnaise to “moisten” or “thin” peanut butter before adding bacon or shredded American cheese.
In the 1960s, Hellman’s Mayonnaise debuted an advertisement suggesting fun ways to spice up the basic peanut butter & mayo sandwich. To make a “Double Crunch,” one simply added bacon and pickles. A “Funny Face” called for raisins and carrots (and some degree of artistic capability). The “Apple Fandango” featured sliced apples and marmalade, while the “Crazy Combo”—you’ve been warned—included salami, sliced eggs, and onions.
Today, a seemingly limitless array of sandwich ingredients are affordable, but peanut butter and mayonnaise remain a beloved combination among the many Americans who grew up eating them. It also continues to maintain standing as one of the cheapest, highest-calorie pairings out there (one tablespoon of either condiment contains about 100 calories). But while famished people struggling through the Great Depression replenished themselves with the dense snack, for 21st-century Americans, the combo of the two, gooey spreads is more likely to inspire a midday nap.
I remember peanut butter and mayo sandwiches and I grew up a “Yankee”...I also remember spreading sugar on buttered bread. That may have ended when it was rationed in WWII...Coming home on the school bus on Mondays always meant fresh baked rolls waiting for us...slathered with butter and PB...Our mother made the rolls and we did the “slathering.”
“”I love P on buttered toast.””
Yes, when nothing else is appealing, THAT will always do the trick - even better with a bowl of cold canned peaches!
Krim is an awesome heirloom tomato. I raised them for two years...couldn’t get enough of them. Gave away boxes full.
TOTALLY JEALOUS!
Yep! That’s how we did it.
Peanut butter, lettuce and mayonnaise. Delicious.
Oh, nice!
I’m old enough to remember that combo. Also popular was a slab of pineapple on peanut butter. All good.😀
What’s got into you?
Where is peanut butter and jelly?
This does not pass the smell test. Well, maybe not smell, but it makes no sense. Back during The Great Depression, mayonnaise would have to have been made by hand. Almost all Southerners had no money to purchase items at a store.
My Southern family, Great-grandparents on down, never ever mentioned putting mayonnaise on a peanut butter sandwich. Back then peanut butter had to be stirred every time it was used so spreadability was not a problem. If they ate eggs, they ate them and didn't take the time to make mayonnaise like some hifalutin restaurant would serve.
Gibs me dem BOILED peasnut and I yam yours for attornity!
I love peanut butter mayo and banana sandwich
I eat one two to three a year
While you’re trying different sandwiches, try peanut butter and dill pickle slices. Must go with a big glass of whole milk though. Can’t believe over a hundred posts and no mention of pb and pickle sandwiches!
I grew up eating peanut butter and mayonnaise in Chattanooga TN and still prefer it today. I eat PB&J almost as often.
I will certainly be trying the Apple Fandango, next time I go shopping.
Crumbled corn bread in buttermilk for you
PB & Hellmans still my fave (I’m 67) but upgraded the bread to pumpernickel. Mrs Crusher has deduced I have an intolerance to wheat (alas, the evidence supports her assertion) so I have not had one of my beloved sammiches for many moons.
Anybody here a fan of the Fluffernutter sandwich? Peanut butter topped off with Marshmallow Fluff? Probably one of the reasons I needed so many dental fillings.
Oh, dang…I think I might like that.
We had few snacks...never had potato chips...just popcorn.
Never had soda unless we bought it at the local gas station out of a machine.
Wafer cookies..or mom baked oatmeal or peanut butter cookies. She did good.
People claim I eat some weird things but I wouldnt eat that in that way either.
There was a recent trend where people were putting the mayo on the outside of a sandwich when frying it instead of butter.
It wasnt real butter so it wound up with the wrong flavor and texture for me. Some people insisted that fried sandwiches were better fried in mayo though.
In the unlikely event you find yourself forced to survive on something like that, you might be able to get it down that way because the mayo flavor is lost and it kind of soaks into the bread when it separates during frying.
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