Today I made crêpes for breakfast like I usually do…
And I tried some smooth peanut butter inside one of them. It doesn’t taste horrible, but after a bit of eating it, I felt like I was in the 3rd circle of hell.
I asked my mother and my grandma for an opinion, and they too agreed.
Why do Americans torture themselves like this?
Why do Americans torture themselves like this?
The finest crêpe I ever ate was peanut butter, banana, and honey from a street vendor in Baden-Wurttemberg at 2am. There may have been ethanol on board, but I stand by the claim.
I don’t know that crepes are the right venue for peanut butter, especially if it’s natural peanut butter, which is gritty and not sweet. While it’s true that store-bought peanut butter in the US has too much added sugar, that really shouldn’t matter. Ground up peanuts are filling, energy-dense and delicious. Why do non-Americans dislike it so much?
Yeah, crêpes seem like the wrong dish.
As an American, I think that natural peanut butter is delicious in the right context. It goes well on puffed rice cakes, with a little salt if it’s unsalted. It’s good with celery as a snack, and it’s an ingredient in some sauces. It can dry out your mouth, so make sure to drink water too.
The classic American use is peanut butter sandwiches, optionally with jam. IMHO these are pretty mid, but their main advantage is that they’re energy dense and don’t require refrigeration. So they’re good for hiking, at least if you have enough water.
Edited to add: also good in cookies, with chocolate, with bananas, and probably some other things I’m forgetting.
This comment sounds like it was written by a robot that cannot taste peanut butter.
Peanut butter is absolutely amazing. It’s creamy rich flavorful deliciousness. I really don’t know what this robot means by “peanut butter sandwich, optionally with jam”. That’s an insane sentence to read. What Eldrich Horror from beyond put those words together? It’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. It’s jelly, not jam, it’s NOT optional (otherwise it’s not a sandwich is it?! It’s just peanut butter on bread) it’s so common and beloved that it even has a nickname: PB&J
It’s amazing with a banana or many different fruits and pastries and milkshakes and sauces and just with crackers. Sometimes you open a new jar and just eat that first bite with a spoon before anyone else can because everyone knows that first bite tastes the best. Sometimes it’s sugary like Jif which is great and sometimes it’s not sugary like Adams and you have to stir it nuts it’s still great and sometimes the store has a machine that just grinds the nuts and you catch it in a plastic container and that’s great too.
It’s peanuts! Ground up into a paste! AND I LOVE IT!
Beep boop.
Sure, peanut butter and jelly is the classic, unless you grew up listening to Raffi, in which case it’s absolutely made with jam. But to me, jelly just isn’t as tasty as jam, or honey or bananas. And if you take it on a hike it can make the bread soggy. And at home I’d usually rather have meat or cheese in my sandwich. But I still go through a ton of peanut butter for rice cakes. And occasionally for a PB&J, and once in a while for hot pot sauce.
And Jif tastes weird to me, but you do you.
BECAUSE, it’s delicious and filling and good and perfect, or more accurately because most of us ate it a lot as children, and it’s very cheap. Though, i am not sure how good it would be on something delicate like crepes. Peanut butter belongs on toast or english muffins with honey. It belongs between slices of cheap preservative-filled bread. It belongs on spoons and in cookies. American peanut butter (things like jif) is also usually full of a bunch of sugar and nonsense that makes it a very different food from natural peanut butter. One is a much higher quality product than the other, and the texture is not at all the same. I think most people eat the processed kind, but if you want to make nice things like crepes or quality recipes, the natural kind (which is basically a different food) might taste a lot better to you.
Does it taste like bitter cardboard? I read somewhere on this thread that it is supposed to be salty…
I do think, to some people, all peanut butter might taste that way. Some kinds are saltier, but it’s not usually that salty. The natural/fresher stuff is closer to “crushed peanuts and their oils + a little salt” and is a lot less sweet and less smooth, but “better” and more peanutty. If you get in a regular jar you will be closer to “thick stubborn substance of indefinite origin that is great on toast”. But maybe I’m overselling the difference- it all tastes like mashed up peanuts and it all definitely sticks to your mouth. It’s a very distinct vibe. Describing it does sound a bit gross haha
Well it did stick to my mouth but… it tasted like bitter N O T H I N G
Either it was off or you have/had Covid.
I am an absolute peanut butter apologist, so my instinct is to tell you to eat it with something sweet. See, in the grand poem of life, peanut butter IS the cardboard, the base if you will, the foundation, upon which jams and honeys and chocolates can be allowed to shine. It elevates them BECAUSE it is nothing, because it is mashed protein giving you an EXCUSE to eat the sugars and condiments on top of it and still be full afterward. The nothingness of peanut butter is its GLORY. It’s a humble condiment, it needs a dance partner. It cannot taste like anything alone on CREPES.
I love peanut butter, especially the plain 'ol natural stuff, but I’d never put it on crêpes, unless it was peanut butter that had a little bit of sugar in it or something.
It sounds like you ate bad peanut butter. It should absolutely never taste bitter for any reason.
Well either that was bad peanut butter, but it’s more likely crepes aren’t good with peanut butter. The heat of the crepes might turn the peanut butter into oily glue, or in some cases gross clotted gorp. I used to try to put peanut butter on pancakes and it always turned out terrible (and I love peanut butter)
Peanut butter is much better with something that’s a contrast like toast, crackers, crunchy veg - or blended into something like cookies, desserts, hot cereal, etc.
Yeah, that sounds like it would be a textural nightmare with how thick and heavy peanut butter is.
It’s very rare to eat peanut butter on its own. It’s most famous for the way it pairs with other flavors. Peanut butter and jelly (strawberry jam is a classic), peanut butter and honey, peanut butter and chocolate, or if you want something super extreme peanut butter and marshmallow fluff.
I would bet you’d like it more if it hadn’t been peanut butter only.
I raw dog peanut butter all the time.
Man, I love peanut butter. I could eat it out of the jar with a spoon. Sadly, I’m now allergic to peanuts.
It never tasted bitter to me. But I always got the brands with sugar and salt mixed into them.
Try adding some jam to them to ease the clagginess of just peanut butter.
DID YOU JUST MAKE UP A WORD TO USE AGAINST PEANUT BUTTER
Haha, no, “claggy” is a great word that describes the thick sticky mud you typically get in peat bogs. Also works very well for PB.
