Peanut Butter

In case you hadn't heard, peanut butter is very American and is very hard to come by in Barcelona.  I considered this issue heavily when debating the move to Barcelona.  Life without peanut butter...is it even worth living?  How was I going to survive? 

Eventually, I decided that Barcelona was a good move...with or without peanut butter.  A suitcase full of peanut butter isn't that heavy...right?

We brought enough peanut butter to tide us over for a while but I still hoped to find some here.  The search went on for quite a while, but we eventually found several brands at an asian grocery store!  You can always count on the Chinese to capitalize on gaps in the market.  The next logical step...peanut butter taste test of course!!

And the competitors are!!!....

• SunPat Crunchy - "Think peanut butter, and the chances are you'll think Sun-Pat. It's the UK's favourite brand - the filling or topping of choice for 300 million sandwiches and rounds of toast every year." - SunPat Website
• Calvé Crunchy - "Eerst een potje bouwstoffen..een pot Calvé Pindakaas zit vol onmisbare voedingsstoffen. Eiwitten, onverzadigde vetten, voedingsvezels, vitaminen: als je groeit, heb je ze nodig. Iedere dag." - Calvé website (anyone know dutch?)
• Pate d'Arachide Creamy (Brown Lid) - Product of Holland.  Note: pate d'arachide translates to paste of peanut...but I just can't help but think of spiders.
• Pate d'Arachide Creamy (Yellow Lid) - Imported through France, product of Malaysia.

Objective: Mimic Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds

Method: Add peanuts + flax seeds to creamy brands and flax seeds to the crunchy brands.  2 rounds of single blind taste tests: PB alone, PB&J sandwich.

Metric: Subjective judgement and preferences

Observations: During sample preparation, I noted a surprising amount of variation in color, texture, and smell amongst the brands.  SunPat seemed unnaturally consistent and JIF-like.  I wasn't liking the looks or smell of Pate D'Arachide (brown lid).  But on to the taste testing...

First round tasting.  A couple had a really off/stale flavor that tasted somewhat artificial.  But surprisingly, my guinea pig didn't seem to mind it.  (Note to self, consider new guinea pig.)  The Sun-Pat was horrible...just goes to show that no good food comes from the UK.  We individually ranked them from best to worst.  We had some differences but the first round went to Pate d'arachide (yellow lid) for the both of us.

Phase II, bread + jelly.  My rankings were pretty consistent with the first round.  Jeff made a couple changes but we eventually came to a decision...

::DRUMROLL::  AND THE WINNER IS.......  ::DRUMROLL::

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PATE D'ARACHIDE - YELLOW LID!!!

And the sun beamed brightly and life in Barcelona seemed worth living again.

Now what were we going to do with all the other competitors?

This may take a while.