Peanut Butter Sandwich (January 1896); Peanut Politics (April 1887)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sun, 27 Jun 2004 15:31:38 EDT,   Bapopik at AOL.COM

>     Smith gives May 1896 (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING) for the first "peanut
>  sandwiches," but we can take that back to at least January 1896, with a
hint
>   that it had come into vogue in the fall of 1895.
>     The July 1897 CHICAGO TRIBUNE "peanut butter" citation here is of
interest.
     <parsnip>
>    Smith mentions on page 31: "This unnamed physician reportedly gave the
>  recipe to George A. Bayles, who, it was claimed, was the first to
manufacture
>  peanut butter."  His name was Bayle--not Bayles--and Bayle's Peanut Butter
> first shows up on the databases in the 1910s.

According to URL http://www.peanutbutterlovers.com/history/

<quote>
Around the same time, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan,
began experimenting with peanut butter as a vegetarian source of protein for his
patients. His brother, W.K. Kellogg, was business manager of their sanitarium,
the Western Health Reform Institute, but soon opened Sanitas Nut Company which
supplied foods like peanut butter to local grocery stores.

The Kelloggs' patent for the "Process of Preparing Nut Meal" in 1895
described "a pasty adhesive substance that is for convenience of distinction termed
nut butter." However, their peanut butter was not as tasty as peanut butter
today because the peanuts were steamed, instead of roasted, prior to grinding. The
Kellogg brothers turned their attention to cereals which eventually gained
them worldwide recognition.
</quote>

Well, this isn't "peanut butter" but it is close, and hopefully will be of
some help.

My local grocery sells "nut butter" which is a peanut-butter-like food made
from tree nuts.

To my surprise, peanut butter was NOT invented by George Washington Carver.

OT: my daughter has relegated BIll Clinton to the kitchen.  "Why would a
publisher give a ten million dollar advance," she asks, "for 957 pages of
hyperbowl?"

               - Jim Landau