A lot of people have been taught that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. That's not exactly true, though I'll get back to Mr. Carver in a minute, because he really was a peanut hero.
But before there was peanut butter, the peanut had a history of its own. And let's just get this over with: The peanut is not a nut; it's actually a legume that originated in South America. It arrived in North America by way of Africa. In this country, peanuts were originally called goobers, from the African word nguba.
Eventually, they took on the name peanuts and sometimes groundnuts, because they grow on bushes close to the ground.
Though there are many claims about the origins of peanut butter, we do know that as early as the 15th century, Africans and Chinese were grinding peanuts to a creamy texture for sauces and stews.
The peanut butter we enjoy today was pioneered in 1890 by Dr. Ambrose Straub. The St. Louis physician was trying to help his older patients whose bad teeth made it hard for them to chew meat. He patented a mill for grinding peanuts into butter and was able to persuade a food company to package it.
This company, Bayle Food Products, took its new product to the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Thinking that they had enough of a supply to last for weeks, they sold peanut butter samples for a penny a piece (it cost almost a penny to make each sample). After three days they were completely out - and they made more than $700 in profit!
Peanut butter was a hit. By the 1920s, companies were jockeying to come up with the best product, and one of the newer innovations was to produce a stabilized peanut butter with a longer shelf life.
