Peanut butter has always been a favorite food of folks worldwide. Soft and creamy with a hint of salty-sweetness, the nut spread is also quite nutritious. Peanut butter is high in healthy fats, niacin and vitamin B6, which enables us to burn energy. It is a good source of protein, especially for vegans, and is also high in fiber. Although it has been banned from most lunchrooms due to peanut allergies, peanut butter remains one of the world’s most favorite childhood memories.
PB&J sandwiches were a favorite in our home when I was growing up, especially for school lunches when we ran out of cold cuts. The saddest part of taking that sandwich to lunch was when the jelly bled through the white bread, which most always guaranteed a rather messy meal, although it was still the tastiest sandwich around. The bread was always TipTop, the peanut butter was always Skippy. The jelly always had to be Welch’s in those little jelly glasses that we saved after the jelly was gone. I am salivating as I write this column, especially because now I am craving a sandwich with a tall glass of ice-cold milk.
As a child, I often accompanied Mom to Grand Union or Key Food when she went grocery shopping. While she often purchased the same items for our favorite sandwich, if Dad was present, he often placed items in the cart that were different and new. One of those items was a crazy looking, squatty jar of peanut butter that seemed to stare up at me from the bottom of the shopping cart. The item? Koogle Peanut Butter.
Koogle was a peanut spread manufactured by Kraft in 1971 that came in four different flavors: chocolate, cinnamon, banana and vanilla. It was easier to spread than regular peanut butter, so the bread did not tear apart as one made a sandwich. The commercial jingle still pings in the folds of my brain: “You’ll love Koogle, the Kraft-y, nutty surprise.” Earlier commercials mentioned “Peanutty Koogle with thekoo-koo-koogly eyes”, which was modeled after the Barney Google song of the 1920s.
Dad seemed to prefer the cinnamon peanut butter that Koogle offered, while my grandmother often had the banana-flavored peanut butter in her refrigerator. We often refrigerated our peanut butter upon opening, which was tough on the bread, especially if we purchased Wonder. Koogle was a family favorite until it was discontinued in the 1970s.
It was not until I met my husband that I halted the practice of refrigerating peanut butter. His grandmother, Nettie, often had a large jar of Skippy in the pantry. The ability to spread the peanut butter was miraculous and seemed to flow like silk over the bread. Nettie also had something in that closet that always gave me a headache to look at on the peanut butter shelf of Grand Union: Goober Peanut Butter and Jelly.
Goober Peanut Butter and Jelly, which comes in both grape and strawberry jelly “striped” jars, is an offering by Smucker’s that arrived on the market in 1968. There was also a variant that had chocolate and honey stripes, although I have not seen that variety in years. Mom never purchased Goober, which was a good thing back then, because the sight of it nauseated me.
I imagined Nettie’s Goober PB&J would make me violently ill, especially because the peanut butter looked dried out and the jelly looked almost slimy. Not wanting to insult her, I smiled as I spread some of the confection on a cracker and took a bite, almost afraid to taste it. I was pleasantly surprised. Thanks to Nettie, there is always at least one jar of Goober PB&J in our pantry. It appears that the recipe has changed, for the smooth peanut butter never tears even the most fragile slices of bread.
Peanut butter and jelly is synonymous with comfort in our home. When our daughter was younger, we often traveled and looked for ways to save on fast food. PB&J sandwiches were portable, easy to make and did not require refrigeration. On a business trip to Hershey, I stopped at an ALDI supermarket and purchased a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a squeeze container of jelly and some plasticware. Although I did not recognize the brands, I will admit that those sandwiches were delicious. They satisfied our hunger, true, but they also satisfied the desire for the comforts of home, no matter how far we are from it.
Patty Servidio is an Anton Media Group columnist.
