The peanut butter and . . . sandwich

Tom and  I married, enjoyed a long weekend for a honeymoon and then went to summer school at the University of Utah in 1964.

Like his mother, but not exactly, I made sack lunches for us.  His mother always made a big sandwich with the meat from Sunday's roast ground up and mixed with mayonnaise and whatever and always with lettuce and tomatoes.  She went the extra mile with a piece of nut bread with cream cheese, and fruit in bite-sized pieces and maybe a piece of pie or a brownie.  Big sack lunch filled with mummy love.

Like I said, I made lunch that summer.  I imagine I continued with my own mother's tradition of a sandwich made up of vienna sausages or that canned ham and a little mayonnaise.  I could also do tuna fish. Throw in an apple.  Mummy is not your mummy anymore.

In one of those first weeks of marriage, Tom called me from his desk in the t.a. office and exclaimed
"What is on this sandwich? It's terrible!"

"It is?" The bride blinked her lovely lashes.  "It's peanut butter and mayonnaise. We ate those all the time at home."

"Peanut butter with mayonnaise? Mayonnaise?"

I began laughing at his incredulity.  Obviously, some kind of ethnic glitch was at work here. "Yes, peanut butter and mayonnaise.  I love peanut butter and mayonnaise," I said, and I really did.

"I've never heard of combining peanut butter with mayonnaise; with jelly, yes, but not mayonnaise. It's just wrong!"

"Well, I guess I won't be making those for you anymore," I said.

"Thank you," he said.  I think I heard a gagging sound.

Thank heaven for Google.  It turns out that peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches were a staple during the depression especially in the south.

I don't know if it reached the Netherlands, but they do love their canned meats.