Column Chronicles: The British still deplore peanut butter

The British still deplore peanut butter

Frank Cotolo
August 13, 2015

For centuries or at least as long as peanut butter existed, people in Great Britain have overwhelmingly rejected its taste. The lovers of blood pudding have never been able to stomach the American spread and at one point wanted it banned from all eateries.

Sir Dulland Woosbottom, a famous cullinary expert of the early 1900s, called peanut butter "a disgusting texture not unlike the droppings from a sick animal." He urged the Royal Family to host an anti-peanut butter campaign to discourage American manufacturers from trying to distribute the product on the isles.

The Royal Family refused the offer but did admit that there was not a living member of their bloodline that was drawn to the substance.

In the very late 1800s, probably around November of 1899, the Wickers of Westchester, N.Y. introduced their brand of peanut butter to residents of London. WW Spread, the product's name, was placed on shelves where British middle class families shopped for fine groceries.

The proprietor of one store offered a sale on WW Spread as an incentive for people to buy it. Three people wanting to buy bottles of WW Spread were beaten half to death by peanut-butter haters that day. No one was arrested.

Peanut butter is a food credited to a Canadian, Marcellus Gilmore Edson. He reportedly concocted the spread using peanut flour, sugar and some other ingredients he never revealed. He first called it peanut paste but changed it to butter because everyone who tried it hated the idea of anything called paste going into their mouths.

Some company tried to market peanut butter in 1901 in Ireland but failed when all the people who tried to eat it heaved. Word got out that a crappy product called peanut butter came from Canada and Irish people hated it solely from the opinions of others. The same company brought the product south to England proper but word of mouth from Ireland got there first and no one bought the product.

Company after company tried to market peanut butter in England but by 1940 everyone hated it either by tasting it or by hearing how horrible it tasted from someone else who may or may not have tasted it.

There was a company that bottled the spread and called it Mrs. Dullensforth's Fine Tasting Spread, hoping to psychologically affect the British people into liking peanut butter. However, it wasn't long after the first bottle was purchased that someone said, "This tasts exactly like that putrid spread called peanut butter."

Today, it is almost impossible to buy peanut butter in any way, shape or form, on the British isles. It goes to show you.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.