But there's always something to get. This dollar store was Dollar General, whose model is not "everything for a dollar" but more like "everything for a round number." Nothing is $2.99 or .69 at Dollar General; it might be $3 or Two for $1, but it's round.
Anyway, I was lured out of my attempted Improved Diet Plan 2020 by this house-brand product:
Yes, I am six years old. The truth has come out.
No, there is a reason for this, and it has to do with a family story from about the time I was six or so. Not a tale of Dickensian deprivation, but I was the victim here!
Many of you may be familiar with Goober, a brand of peanut butter Smucker's has been selling since 1968. The gimmick is that the PB is combined in the jar with alternating stripes of jelly, either grape or strawberry. This came to my notice well into my PBJ-eating experience, and I was immensely curious about this technological dietary innovation. How did they get the PB and J in the same jar like that? Was it good peanut butter (who could trust Smucker's, a brand known for its jelly?), or just a lame way to move more of the flagship stuff? Was it much more convenient for making sandwiches, or eating right out of the jar, especially for a wide-eyed tot? And most of all: WAS IT AWESOME?
I had no way of knowing. My mom wouldn't buy it. My dad was a dedicated jelly-on-toast guy, so she thought it was dumb to buy this when we had to have jelly around anyway.
Okay, I could take that. Mom had to say no to us kids about 976,934 times a week, mostly at the supermarket.
Here's the cruel part. We were going to visit a beloved relative, one who had no kids of her own, and she asked mom what we ate. Thinking of me, my mother said PBJ; if you are what you eat, I was probably a good third peanut butter and jelly, a third Cap'n Crunch, and the other third all that useless stuff like fruit and lima beans and pot roast. So dear relative went shopping, was amazed by the edible technology on display in the Goober & Grape, and bought a jar. She was still curious when she got home, so she opened the jar had a little taste.
AND ATE THE WHOLE THING!
It was all gone before we got there. Every ounce. All we had was a funny story. Well, they thought it was funny. I laughed dryly, defeated. Ha. Ha.
Mom did not ease my disappointment by buying a jar when next we shopped. The rules of spending money were not ironclad, but they were at least leadclad. I don't remember ever trying it. When I was out of the house I didn't buy PB that much; at the time the jars seemed kind of pricey and I needed money for important things (beer). But when I saw this jar in the Dollar General, it all came flooding back. I finally bought my own.
And... it's okay.
The problem is not the quality of the ingredients but the gimmick itself. You can't get it out of the jar without mushing the peanut butter with the jelly, which gets the flavors get mixed up -- and the PB crushes the J. Layering it traditionally gives more balance to the flavors, allowing the jelly to shine. It wasn't bad by any means, but by diminishing the jelly taste it loses some of the benefit promised by the process -- PB and J, coequal partners in a brave new venture.
Smucker's original may be better, might other store brands like Ralphs Yipes! Stripes! (yes really), but I suspect the issue I bring up is baked in the pie, so to speak.
Well, I may have been a little disappointed, but I think justice at long last was done. Or something.
A sandwich was done. And I ate it. And it was okay.
2 comments:
I was always bothered by the idea of the jelly to peanut butter ratio was being decided for me. I liked lots of peanut butter and later discovered the superiority of PB on both pieces of bread with a thin layer of jelly between.
Whoa! Culinary advance! PBJPB -- will it stick?
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