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Should You Skip Jelly and Embrace Sandwiches With Peanut Butter and Pickles, Lettuce, or Kimchi?

Should You Skip Jelly and Embrace Sandwiches With Peanut Butter and Pickles, Lettuce, or Kimchi?

People from the United States have a tendency to think of peanut butter as a sweet ingredient, but that’s a mistake.

I have been a peanut butter and pickle sandwich truther for about a decade now. I don’t know where I initially read or heard about the depression-era sensation, but I know that it was love at first bite. In fact, the very first article I was ever paid to write (for the now defunct xoJane), was an elaborate peanut butter and pickle taste test with a wide variety of pickles.

It would be unfair to say that I owe my entire career to the combination, but it certainly set the tone for my future oeuvre, for better or worse. As such, I am always down to try “out there” peanut butter sandwiches. People from the United States have a tendency to think of peanut butter as a sweet ingredient, best baked into cookies or paired with with jelly or chocolate, but that’s a mistake. (Think Pad Thai, peanut stew, and a whole bunch of other fine dishes from Asian and African cuisines.)

To test the limits of the peanut butter sandwich, and hopefully find a new favorite, Joel and I began our flavor excursion with the classic PB & pickle (to ease Joel into this genre of sandwich). We then progressed to PB & lettuce and PB & kimchi. Making this video was a journey across textural peaks and valleys, with bold flavor combinations that surprised us both. (Well, mostly Joel. I wasn’t that surprised because I’ve been “into this kind of stuff” for a while now.)

I encourage you to taste along with us, and I encourage you to let these sandwiches inspire you to create your own unique and interesting peanut butter delicacies. (If you need even more inspiration, I’ve got more suggestions here.)