I’ve had all sorts of peanut butter combo sandwiches*, including peanut butter and chocolate chips, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, peanut butter and bananas, peanut butter and margarine (on toast) and peanut butter and potato chips. Do any of these sound intriguing or revolting to non-Americans? Just curious.
Another Midwesterner here who has never had any sandwiches with butter on them. It’s pretty much unheard of here, other than the typical grilled cheese. I try to be open minded but the idea of it actually sounds really gross to me. I didn’t grow up with butter (margarine kid here) and when I do try it, I find it fatty and bland. I’d rather put a spread with flavor to compliment the sandwich.
Not just Britain. Here in Canada, my mother put butter on ever sandwich she ever made: PB&J, cold cuts, even things like cucumber sandwiches. Even if the sandwich had mayo and/or mustard, there was always butter on it.
I don’t do it on every sandwich I make nowadays; but sometimes I do, for old times’ sake.
Good lord a cucumber sandwich without butter just wouldn’t be a cucumber sandwich.
I’ve been reading this thred from the beginning and I don’t think anyone has mentioned the odd things the Dutch put on bread– chocolate vermicelli, fruity sprinkles and strangest of all crushed aniseed sugar called muisjes – mousies – because of their supposed resemblance to baby mice.
I imagine some of our Sxandinavian Brothers might be quite envious of this thread with all of the liberal buttering that is going on. 50 bucks for a pound of butter? i would revolt. The lubricated revolution… buttery goodness. I’d switch to lard if it got that desperate… some Lard on Wexk.
Never seen apple jam either. Strawberry or blackcurrant (or any other berry or currant) jam is what I’d usually use with peanut butter. And I’d never use butter with a peanut butter sandwich, same as I wouldn’t with a Marmite sandwich.
I skipped some of the posts-- hey, it’s a long thread-- so I’m not sure if Sweet Chilli Sauce has been mentioned. It turns up a lot at Queensland barbecues, usually goes on sausages. It’s OK, I prefer generally prefer hot sauce and for sausages I like yellow mustard.
To contribute to the peanut butter discussion, it’s a good kid food. Kids don’t like meat, IME, so it’s good to be able to give them an inexpensive protein that doesn’t require refrigeration. Mine like it.
While peanut butter is sold in every supermarket I’ve checked around here, as “peanut butter”, adults react as if it’s unusual and tend to call it “peanut paste”.
Uses for peanut butter other than PB&Js:
Cookies
Cracker spread
On carrots or celery
Sandwiches with peanut butter all alone
Sandwiches with other stuff-- honey, banana, and I used to eat crunchy peanut butter and chopped garlic sandwiches
Food glue: I saw a chef on TV seal a burrito with peanut butter
I grew up in Michigan and I remember some kids’ moms would put butter on sandwiches. I’m not a fan but it makes sense as a way to keep your bread from getting soggy in a packed lunch. I’d suggest using denser bread instead.
It’s there for texture and to hold the sandwich together, not for taste - I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the taste much. Americas presumably use something else to help keep the bits in the sandwich adhered to the bread, like mayo or ketchup or weak mustard or, indeed, peanut butter.
Most people use butter substitutes - actual butter for use at home on ordinary sandwiches is vanishingly rare - but our butter substitutes are varied, not just greasy margarine. But we still usually say butter. This is starting to lead into tongue-twister territory. Yes, we butter every butty, but our butter’s a bit better.
P.i.C- I use real butter on sandwiches. Butter on voonder bread that my Dutch Pops who worked at Howard Johnsons liked to put on sandwiches- butter and horseradish on roast beef (and/or pork) sandwiches and as a waterproofing against Baked Bean sandwiches to the frail voonder bread. I can taste and appreciate the extra rich, lugubrious, “grreasieness” of butter and jif on a folded slice of voonder brod. Vutter and Voonder Brod buttered for a fried egg sandwich gives the thin and spongy bread saturated and greasy wet spots just like I like it.
Reels in horror at the idea of not using real butter
One of the first things Crusoe and I bonded over was that it HAS to be real butter and that butter HAS to be Danish Lurpak. You won’t find margarine or any “butter-like” spreads in our house.
PB&J sandwiches taste just as great (if not more) with this type of peanut butter. However, PB&J sandwiches, I’ve found, do seem to be conceptually repulsive to a good portion of the European populace. I’d say about 2/3 of the Europeans I’ve introduced to it hate it, and 1/3 love it. There’s no in-between. Why this is perplexes me as, as has been noted, the mixture of nuts + sweets is not exactly uncommon. (See the many chocolate bars with nuts & raisins, Nutella, etc.)
When I first saw Lurpak on the shelves, I wondered if it was the official butter of Omicron Persei 8.
Seriously though, if we’re talking quality butters, you’ll need to head to the Antipodes, I’m afraid.
And I still can’t believe anyone, anywhere would make a meat-filled sandwich which didn’t have butter on it. Mayonnaise is for making egg salads and dipping chips into, not putting on sandwiches. Except maybe steak sandwiches. Maybe.
Probably regional, though I’d like to see a linguistic map. I’m in the Pacific Northwest and have always lived here, always called them jojos, but my Missourian fiance reports that in the Midwest they’re just potato wedges. I’ve also had friends from Montana baffled by my calling them jojos. But my Dad is from Texas and (unlike his habit of talking about the icebox and other similarly older dude/Texan dude phrases) always calls them jojos or jos.
According to Wikipedia, the term “originated in Ohio and is also used in the Pacific Northwest, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas,and other areas.” I have personally never heard this term before.
Yes, we butter every butty, but our butter’s a bit better.