Thursday, March 29, 2012

All Natural Peanut Butter

I have a question to ask about organic peanut butter. Who thought this was a good idea? When you want peanut butter, you want it in a hurry. But open a jar of the natural stuff and what you get is a dilemma: a pool of slime on top and a lump below. 
     Because it has to be refrigerated, the congealed lump is like a rock, and so you have to run it through the microwave for a few seconds. Then you try to stir the stuff together with a table knife, but it won't mix, and the hot oil slops over your knuckles, and by the time your patience has worn out, all you've got, at best, is something akin to peanut butter paint that barely stays on your toast, or a chunk of the congealed stuff that tears the bread if you try to spread it. 
     It doesn't even smell or taste like peanut butter, either, or even peanut oil: more like a Peanut Butter Cup that's been hiding for a couple of decades in your grandmother's hamper. Only not that good. 
     Is this really what George Washington Carver had in mind? And didn't Peter Pan and his people take care of this fifty years ago? Isn't it called homogenization?
     A Thai chef was telling a cooking a class that the first step in making Thai peanut sauce was to buy a jar of peanut butter. 
     "You mean the organic kind?" someone asked earnestly. 
     "No, no, none of that shit," he snapped. "You go get Jiffy." 

No comments:

Post a Comment