What Do American's Eat? - Part 2 - Crunchy Peanut Butter

All this week I'm going to be featuring "American" items that I found in a European grocery store (Lidl) during a sale they had featuring American products.

Peanut butter, some of you don't give it a second thought, others of you aren't really sure why so many people don't give it a second thought.  I've discovered in my travels that many people outside of North America don't really get the appeal of peanut butter.  It seems strange to people in North America because it's really part of our every day.

Now you may have noticed that I've been using the words "North America" when describing this treat.  While peanut butter is very popular in the USA, it's not necessarily an American invention.  In fact I should probably change "North America" to just "the Americas" because peanut butter's origins can be traced back to the Aztecs.  Even stranger, the modern smooth incarnation of peanut butter was said to patented by a Canadian (Marcellus Gilmore Edson), and not George Washington Carver, and many American's might think.

CC

Learn About Chocolate

If you're not really familiar with the history of chocolate and the Aztecs, these two sites are chock (oh the pun opportunities here) full of interesting information.  The first deals with the role of Aztec women and how they may have created/discovered what the cocoa bean had to offer.  The second is a simple list of quick facts about cocoa and its history, this kind of information is great if you ever find yourself stuck in a candy trivia challenge.

Click here to read about how women may have discovered chocolate.

Click here to read a few fun facts about chocolate.

CC