I remember when Misha was younger, probably four. I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she corrected me. She told me that the jelly goes on the other piece of bread-- not on top of the peanut butter. I didn't make them that way and I told her so. She let me know that, "That's not how mama does it!" and she spun around and left the kitchen.For years I've recalled that story and never really knew why I made PB&J that way. Until this morning. Today I finally remembered why the jelly doesn't go on the other piece of bread.
This morning I thought back to when my brothers and I took turns making our lunches. There were four of us in school at the time. (Terri and Mary Beth stayed home because they were still too young for school and Bart wasn't even born yet.) Brian and I would get two sandwiches each; Tim and John would have one apiece. When it was my turn to make lunches, I employed the "assembly line" approach, making all sandwiches at once. I'd lay out the bread, bottoms on the bottom row, and tops just above. Even then, I made sure that the two pieces of bread used for the sandwich went back together the same way they came off the loaf, face to back so to speak. If it was bologna that day, all the bologna would get put on, then I'd go back to the first and put the mustard on the bologna. (Yep, that's the way we ate it.) Then I'd flip all the top pieces of bread on and put them in plastic bags. This was way before Ziploc. We used the old Glad sandwich bags that had a flap you would tuck in and then fold over the little pocket on the front. Mom usually had some type of Hostess snack for us too. So, after the sandwiches were made and bagged, I'd write the names on the brown paper bags, open them, put in the sandwiches, then drop in either a Twinkie, a Ho-Ho, or a Ding-Dong.
So, what does this have to do with how a PB&J is assembled? Well, as I made mine this morning, I remembered the reason the jelly shouldn't go on the plain piece of bread. It's really simple and I cannot believe it's taken me 21 years to remember the reason. You put the peanut butter on first to create a base. The base seals any holes in the bread. Then you apply the jelly over the base. Putting the jelly on the plain side may be easier to spread, but you end up pushing the jelly through any holes in the bread and you are left with a mess on the counter top when you're done. Not only does this mess require clean up, but you run the very high risk of getting jelly in a lot of other places it does not belong-- like the Glad bag, the paper bag, your white uniform shirt, your forearm, etc...
The bottom line is this: Misha, mama may put the jelly on the other piece of bread, but dad had his reason for doing it his way. It just took him two decades to remember what that reason is.
