Peas and carrots! Pork and beans! Cookies and milk! Salt and pepper!
Peanut Butter and Jelly!
I don’t know about you, but my childhood was built on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All American, you can say.
It’s such an iconic pairing, peanut butter and jelly. Shoot, there’s even that catchy but ever so annoying children’s song. (You know which one I’m talking about, please don’t make me start singing the lyrics, they will be in my head all day.)
But where did this sandwich come from?
Well, it came from a woman.
Her name? Julia David Chandler.
Quick context:
Peanut butter, it’s pretty basic today, right? Mostly every household will have a good trusty jar of peanut butter on hand. But back in them good ole days, think 1900s, it was actually quite hoity toity, served at exclusive Victorian and Edwardian high teas and dinner parties.
However, our girl Julia, was the first woman credited for pairing peanut butter with jelly together. She used current and crab apple jelly on a cracker or tea sandwich. It was published in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics (anyone who can say that in one breath deserves an ice cream sandwich.)
But how did it become less high tea and more basic everyday American?
Enter the WWII American soldier. Three ingredients were regulars in their rations: bread, peanut butter, and jelly. They paired Julia’s original pairing together and it became a classic comfort food during the war. After WWII, peanut butter and jelly sales skyrocketed. Returned soldiers introduced the sandwich to their families and their baby boomer kids, initiating the craze and becoming an enduring classic kid favorite.
Fun Fact: grape jelly was created by Paul Welch (think: Welch’s Grap Jelly) in 1917. It was first called Grapelade, like marmalade. Then soon enough it just became grape jelly.
Doris Day Would Love Me 