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PBJtime.jpg

How To Make The Perfect PBJ

By Pajiba Staff | Food Porn | March 28, 2017 |

By Pajiba Staff | Food Porn | March 28, 2017 |


Around these parts we get most particular about our foods. We like things the way we likes ‘em. And there is perhaps no recipe so simple yet so contested as that of the perfect Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich. An American classic found in lunch boxes across this great nation, it boasts untold variations. But some things—like bread, peanut butter, and jelly—are crucial. Unless you’re a certain Overlord with no respect for the basic decency of childhood classics.

Prepare to be enraged as the Overlords answer the ultimate question: How do you make a perfect PBJ?

Kristy Puchko: First, you start off with white bread, not some fancy bread that’ll detract from the flavors or textures of your PB and your J. Second, you pick your peanut butter—I favor creamy Jif—and spread that goober goodness to the VERY ends of the bread. Don’t skimp. Then you take the other slice, and apply your jam/jelly, but not TOTALLY to the edges, because you don’t want it oozing out the sides. My preference: Welch’s strawberry preserves. More berry, less berry goo. Slap together, pair with a glass of milk, and boom: perfection.

Petr Knava: So, and I know this’ll probably just me: I don’t. Horrible concoction of a sandwich, the PBJ. No thanks.

Kristy: Is it because of communism somehow?

Petr: You know it’s always because of communism. Jelly - the opiate of the masses.

Sarah Carlson: White bread. Classic creamy Jif. Welch’s grape jam. THE END.

Dustin Rowles: When I was a kid, I would mix the PB&J in a bowl and then put it on the bread. It’s even better that way.

Steven Lloyd Wilson: Good white bread, preferably home-baked buttermilk bread. Creamy peanut butter and strawberry jam. Not jelly. Jam. I want those chunky fruit pieces. And there should be SO MUCH peanut butter and jam, like by volume it should be 50% bread, 50% peanut butter and jam. Then I eat it open faced, the peanut butter side first so that the jam slice of bread is like the dessert. Best eaten with a huge glass of milk.

TK: Wheat bread. That’s right motherfuckers. Good soft wheat. Creamy peanut butter - Jif or Skippy. Fuck your organic shit, that stuff is garbage no matter how hard you try to pimp it on me. Then you take a butter knife and you thickly spread the peanut butter on one side of the bread all the way to the edges, just like Kristy said. Then you take a jar of jam or jelly, doesn’t matter which, and you throw it in the fucking trash. Then you either slice up a banana and put that on the other side, or you spread Nutella on the other side… or both. Assemble and eat with milk, apple juice, or whiskey.

Steven: Jesus, the question was how do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, not a peanut butter and sad fruit sandwich. If someone asks how you play baseball do you get out a hockey stick? At least Petr is honest about his godless anti PBJ communist agenda.

Petr: Say what you want about Knava’s impending benign dictatorship, at least it’s an ethos.

Kristy: He who eats open-faced PBJs shouldn’t throw stones.

Steven: Equating my violation of the definition of “sandwich” to his violation of the definition of “jelly” is comparing apple butters and orange marmalades.

Victoria McNally: Have you guys ever grilled a PBJ? It’s magnificent. You just put a little butter in the pan or on the outsides of the sandwich like you do with grilled cheese. And you have to do Kristy’s don’t-put-stuff-all-the-way-to-the-edge method, but it’s amazing.

TK: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Emily Chambers: Oh, god. I feel TK’s wrath already. Whole wheat bread, natural crunchy peanut butter and either: whole fruit, no sugar added jam OR a banana OR if I’m feeling really fancy, sliced apple and cheddar cheese. THAT’S RIGHT. COME AT ME, BROS.

TK: Sliced apple and cheese is solid, Emily. We cool.

Steven: My favorite pizza is basketball. My favorite fruit is granola. My favorite color is bumble bee.

Emily Chambers:

TK: Is this the right time to say that I used to eat peanut butter sandwiches with chopped onion on them? I refuse to be bound by the tyrannical constraints of Big Jelly.

Steven: I’m on board: dash of lime and you’ve got yourself a satay sandwich. BUT IT’S NOT A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH.

Tell us in the comments: How do you make a perfect PBJ?