Today we celebrate my all-time favorite spread, the Peanut Butter. This day is observed annually on March 1st.
Do you love peanut butter? The creamy, nutty goodness that just amazingly delicious even by itself. I love peanut butter especially in a slice of toasted bread with slices of ripe bananas.
Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground dry-roasted peanuts. It often contains ingredients that modify the taste and texture, such as salt, sweetener, and emulsifiers. The United States is the leading exporter of peanut butter and consumes $800 million of peanut butter annually.
Nowadays, you can find all goodies made from peanut butter from candy bars to baked goods like cookies, crepes, fudge, and also has been popular flavor on smoothies. They are so versatile that it can be served as a spread on bread, toast, or crackers and used to make sandwiches like the Peanut Butter and Jelly.
The two main types of peanut butter that you can find at the store are crunchy type and the smooth kind. I love the crunchy type because I love peanuts and even if it is a smooth spread, you still can have little chunks of peanuts.
The late Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, obtained a patent for a method of producing peanut butter from roasted peanuts using heated surfaces in 1884. Early peanut-butter-making machines were developed by Joseph Lambert, who had worked at John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium, and Dr. Ambrose Straub who obtained a patent for a peanut-butter-making machine in 1903.
In 1922, chemist Joseph Rosefield invented a process for making smooth peanut butter that kept the oil from separating by using partially hydrogenated oil. Rosefield licensed his invention to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter” in 1928 and in 1932 he began producing his own peanut butter under the name Skippy.
Under the Skippy brand, Rosefield developed a new method of churning creamy peanut butter, giving it a smoother consistency. He also mixed fragments of peanut into peanut butter, creating the first “chunky”-style peanut butter.
So, today you can celebrate this day by having some peanut butter and jelly sandwich or bake some peanut butter cookies to share with friends and family. Share on social media your favorite PB recipe using #PeanutButterDay.
1961 President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking for permanent funding for the agency, which would send trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist in development efforts. The Peace Corps captured the imagination of the U.S. public, and during the week after its creation, thousands of letters poured into Washington from young Americans hoping to volunteer.
The immediate precursor of the Peace Corps–the Point Four Youth Corps–was proposed by Representative Henry Reuss of Wisconsin in the late 1950s. Senator Kennedy learned of the Reuss proposal during his 1960 presidential campaign and, sensing growing public enthusiasm for the idea, decided to add it to his platform. In early October 1960, he sent a message to the Young Democrats that called for the establishment of a “Youth Peace Corps,” and on October 14 he first publicly spoke of the Peace Corps idea at an early morning speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The night before, he had engaged Vice President Richard Nixon in the third presidential debate and was surprised to find an estimated 10,000 students waiting up to hear him speak when he arrived at the university at 2 a.m. The assembled students heard the future president issue a challenge: How many of them, he asked, would be willing to serve their country and the cause of freedom by living and working in the developing world for years at a time?
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/peace-corps-established)
