Daddy's PB& J and Food+Memory

Peanut Butter & Jelly

My father drank milk in a mason jar chock full of large ice cubes. The sweating glass jar of ice-cold milk was often paired with his all-time favorite – a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or 2 depending on the size of the wheat bread.) Always creamy never chunky, always grape never strawberry or apricot. He would place the sandwich and mason jar on a tray and watch cartoons with my brothers and I when we got home from school. The cartoons were usually of the Tom & Jerry variety. I think he enjoyed these cartoons, these moments as much as we did. Sometimes he would even dunk the pb&j in the cold mason jar soaking up the right ratio of sogginess and then feast on the pb&j milkiness. This is an art form in itself.

My father was a Tolkeinite. This means he was a superfan of the work of English author, poet, and philologist, J.R.R. Tolkein. He re-read Tolkein every year ritualistically and was very fond of the character Samwise Gamgee and his impressive gardening. When I was in the 2nd grade he introduced me to Tolkein’s, The Hobbit on wax. On wax!! It was a Hobbit album (cover below), that contained the same exact story from the book, same words, although abbreviated. We would turn on the record player, put the Hobbit on the turntable, lower the needle to scritchy scratchy sounds and then came forth a British accent narrating the most wonderful opening lines I ever heard:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort .

Thanks to my dad I was the only 2nd grader already reading Tolkein. We sometimes would listen to the Hobbit while eating our pb&j sandwiches following along with Bilbo Baggins and his adventures throughout Middle Earth. PB&J is my hobbit-hole and that means comfort.

Once, my brother and I held a pb&j contest to see who could make the best sandwich. Our father was the taste tester and judge. I lost most likely due to my over zealousness with the peanut butter. Dad liked an economy of peanut butter and jelly both equally smooth and distributed to the corners on each bread. But not too spare. He often spoke of growing up in a poor family, his mother was widowed when he was still a young boy. He would say that his mother made sandwiches with such sparse filling that you could read through them. Cooking (including sandwich making) is chemistry and balance. It’s like writing a musical composition where you have to hit the right notes at the right time and in the right place.

His ritualistic pairing of pb&j with ice cold milk, ice cubes, and mason jar was something he relished in until his recent passing. It was no surprise finding the large industrial size Peter Pan peanut butter and Welch’s Grape Jelly in his kitchen. PB&J is a sandwich often associated with youth and kids’ school lunches. It was a mirror of his ever-youthful spirit, optimism, and simplicity. I think it reminded him of being safe and loved, of childhood memories of his own and those he shared with his children. Whenever I think of pb&j I always think of my father.

I marvel how food is so intricately tied to memory and sometimes carrying strong emotional connections. It’s like the scene in the Oscar award winning animated film, Ratatouille, (2007) when the acerbic food critic, Anton Ego, (voiced by Peter O’Toole), starts to eat the eponymous dish prepared by an actual rat chef behind the scenes in the kitchen. The food critic is suddenly catapulted in time back to his youth eating his mother’s ratatouille in their humble kitchen somewhere in the French countryside. The aroma and flavors suspend him in this time warp of warmth where he knew he was safe and loved. As he recovers from this excursion the once draconian critic softens his heart and begins to cry. The ratatouille stirred memories and emotions that were greater than his critical restaurant reviews – they stirred up love. My ratatouille is pb&j. I think I will always associate pb&j with my father, after school cartoons, large mason jars of ice-cold milk and cubes, and of course, love, safety, and affection.

When my father passed away last month I felt I was on the onset of a “cruel summer.” Reminiscent of the 1980s pop sensation, Bananarama, whose name is soooo appropriate for a food-related post, and their summer anthem, “Cruel Summer.” The lyrics seemed appropriate:

It's a cruel, (cruel), cruel summer
(Leaving me) leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel, (it's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone

The city is crowded
My friends are away
And I'm on my own
It's too hot to handle
So I got to get up and go

A “Cruel Summer” or so I thought. At least until I went into his kitchen and pulled out his giant jar of Peter Pan creamy peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly. I made a pb&j that he could be proud of and now my summer is a lot less cruel and much more yummy. The connection between food and memory is indelible, especially childhood recollections that last a lifetime. Food + Memory = Powerful Emotions. From pb&j to Ratatouille – food and childhood memories are the fodder of our future emotional landscape.