In Praise of
Marcellus Gilmore Edison
by Doug Hawley
The list of
things that have been important to me in my life
includes peanut butter, a minimal amount of human
interaction, an appropriate supply of oxygen,
naps and bad clothes. The order is arbitrary.
I don’t know when I had my first pb (known
as penis buster when no one is around to hear)
sandwich because my memory only goes back for a
few of my 74 years, with exceptions for early
toilet incidents. My mother always wanted to
add lettuce in order to get me to consume
vegetables. Not a taste treat. I have
dabbled in pickle, onion, jelly and banana
additions, but my favorite is peanut butter with
plain butter on rye or whole wheat.
Our current
brand has salt and vegetable monoglycerides (from
palm oil). Years of partially hydrogenated
oils turned me into an old man. Those years
were followed by years of mixing the oil with
solids which I consistently turned into a mess. I’d
like to believe that the current concoction which
does not need mixing and contains no sugar will
allow me to live a few more years.
Peanut butter
has been featured in around thirty songs. Take
that Nutella. I’m disappointed that the one
that I know “Bread and Butter” by the
New Beats shows distaste for this wonderful food.
The most
infamous pb sandwiches are attributed to Elvis
Presley. Variations were known as the Elvis or
Fool’s Gold Loaf including a loaf of bread,
pound of bacon, a jar of grape jelly and a jar of
peanut butter. He still lived to be 43.
You would do
better to look elsewhere than this short history,
but here goes. Aztecs made a peanut paste for
toothaches, and then in 1884 Marcellus Gilmore
Edison (unrelated I think) patented peanut butter.
I thought for years that it was George Washington
Carver, but the always accurate internet
disabused me, so I had to change the title.
Another popular mistake – peanuts are not
nuts, but legumes.
I feel that I
have been unfair to Wheat Thins, but they have
not served me as long as peanut butter.
Short
bio - Same old, old same - see more info and
a hundred odd (sometimes very) stories https://sites.google.com/site/aberrantword/
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