I tried this. I really did. You’re welcome – now you don’t have to.
The August 1918 Relief Society Magazine shared two recipes for what it called “splendid food substitutes.” I don’t know about the “splendid” part, but I can definitely vouch for the “food substitute” part. These things are definitely a substitute for food. You would never mistake them for food itself.
Peanut Butter Sausages
Recipe 1:
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp. grated onion
1/2 tsp. sage
dash of paprika
1 cup peanut butter
Recipe 2:
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 cup cooked rice
1 egg
salt and pepper
Directions for both: Mix all ingredients together. Mold into little sausage rolls and fry in deep fat.
I suppose my 2019 peanut butter may differ from the peanut butter of 1918 – ours is probably sweeter? Did the cooks of 1918 have chunky as well as creamy peanut butter? I used creamy peanut butter when I tried Recipe 1.
First, the mixture was much too soft to form into little sausages, or to mold into anything else. I tried my blobs in deep fat, and they immediately dissolved into something I couldn’t strain out of the oil. So I tried frying the blobs as round patties on a lightly greased pan. They didn’t dissolve, but neither did they fry. They didn’t get crisp or form any kind of a crust; they just sort of got hot and melty.
And second, what did it taste like? Exactly how you would imagine onion-flavored peanut butter to taste. Onion-flavored peanut butter with sage and paprika. Yeah, exactly like that. Like something that should be against the Word of Wisdom.
Okay, so this was a wasted post. Kind of like the wasted peanut butter. If it has any point, it is to remind you to be grateful you live in the 21st century, a day when the editors of your church magazines do not feel impressed to recommend that you put onion in your peanut butter and dissolve it in fat.
And that’s all I’ve got. Whatever else you read today is bound to be an improvement. Cheers!
Wow. Thank you for conducting the experiment for us. And your line about being against the Word of Wisdom was perfect!
Not that anyone should try the recipe again, but I wonder if homemade peanut butter would work better …
Perhaps this was not a recipe, but a testimony. For some people, flour lasts for weeks, others are able to live on boiled leather, and some have faith to obtain sustenance from fried peanut butter seasoned with onion.
Regardless, thank you for making me tear up.
From laughing so hard.
It turns out that there’s not a hint of evidence that Bismarck ever said it, but the following statement is nonetheless true, and this post confirms it:
“Gesetze sind wie Würste, man sollte besser nicht dabei sein, wenn sie gemacht werden.”
Laws are like sausages–it’s better if one is not nearby when they’re made.
(Even my disappearing German suggests that at least a semicolon is needed after Würste, because run-on sentences are the worst.)
I like chocolate, and I like cheese, but it does not follow that I would like chocolate cheese. I think the same logic applies here regarding onions and peanut butter. But at least they were transparent enough to label it as a “food substitute.”
However, this might come in handy when we are all walking back to Missouri, and looking for food substitutes along the way. Peanut butter sausages? check! Buffalo chips? check!
My mother-in-laws’s cookbook has a recipe for onion and peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter had to be different then!
Sarah’s suggestion and Carol’s comment sent me off in a search that resulted in the finding of this 466-page book (2015), Origin and Early History of Peanut Butter (1884-2015): Extensively Annotated Bibliography and Source Book.
Maybe one of you is brave enough to look through it for anything relevant. I’m not. 😀
…blanching…
On the other hand, Thai peanut sauce is a thing, and I had an African peanut soup many years ago that I remember as being quite good. Google notes that Colonial Williamsburg serves a Cream of Peanut Soup at one of its restaurants. Not sure I’d recommend any of these dishes until all of us have a chance to recover from reading this though. : )
I looked, and that book has more than 450 pages, so I think not. Maybe if they come out with an abridged version that is not extensively annotated, or else wait for the movie version.
Homemade peanut butter tends to separate. Perhaps 1918 peanut butter lacked the emulsifiers that the modern product uses. That would be something to try IF you liked the flavor. The peanut soup in Williamsburg is delicious. It has been 40 or more years since I have had it, but I was just thinking on Monday that I might try to make some. I won’t be serving it with these gems though.
Maybe it should be “incredible” food substitutes. As in, “I can’t believe this is a substitute for food!”
Since nobody else said it, let me say that those sausages sound like the wurst!
You are all welcome.
Also, I am pretty sure that their peanut butter was just ground peanuts. Ours is much different. The local granola-type food store should have the plain stuff.
Are you volunteering to make the experiment, JRL? 😀 😀
That is a great idea! I think I will volunteer. As soon as I can get some peanut butter from Sprouts, I will try it and report.