West Chester Dish

I have a thing for Peanut Butter. I prefer the natural chunky style but I’ll eat any variety. And I love to eat it with lots of yum-tastic things.

I love it with ice cream. It creates an instant peanut butter ripple to any flavor frozen treat. I like to eat it on crackers and with apples. I really enjoy it with some strawberry jam or with honey. But my favorite snack is peanut butter on a banana.

I get this snack a few times a week around 3:00pm from the cafe at work. There is a large bowl of fruit at the register and when I need a caffeine fix in the afternoon I walk to the cafe, pick up a banana out of the fruit basket, hold the banana up to my ear as if it’s a telephone and the proceed to order my coffee and a side of peanut butter.

The girl at the cafe shakes her head and nods that I am crazy, but I make myself laugh as if it’s the first time I do it.

I take my snack to my desk and enjoy every bite. Yesterday as I was eating my banana and peanut butter I started thinking… here is how it went:

1. I like bananas and peanut butter
2. I like peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches
3. I don’t think I’d like peanut butter and banana jam
4. I really don’t think I’d like peanut butter and strawberries

I had to ask my cubicle mates. The response was that they preferred peanut butter and grape jelly together. But no, they wouldn’t like grapes with peanut butter. Here’s what she had to say.

“Like if I were to put PB on a grape that would be a tough thing to do. Like it would slip all over the place. And it wouldn’t stick very well. It’d be like grapes everywhere.”

Silence as I spread more peanut butter on my banana considered the thoughts on peanut butter and fruit.

She continuted, “You know what I do like to do sometimes? Is just have peanut butter and jelly in a bowl… forget the bread. I don’t think peanut butter and jelly in a bowl is really good for you but it tastes good. I learned that from my brother.”

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s yummy.”

Silence again as I finished my snack and she flipped through a marketing magazine. “They have colored fortune cookies in here that you can customize with your companies message. It kind of grosses me out.”

I was looking at the left over peanutty goodness in the little plastic cup and replied, “I would dip a fortune cookie in peanut butter.”

“I would dip it in ice cream.”

Fair enough.

The Final Dish: Why does peanut butter pair with certain jams but not the actual fruit or visa versa? I don’t get it. Why is that?