Velvet Memories

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Most of us don’t think of the late 1960s as the Golden Age of the peanut butter sandwich. I do. It was a time when my grandmother would make sandwiches with Smucker’s jelly and Velvet Peanut Butter. I don’t know how many tall jars of homogenized goodness I engorged in my childhood, but in my memory it was in everything: sandwiches, milk shakes, fudge, on Ritz crackers, and (I kid not a bit) in coffee cups mixed with Karo dark corn syrup.

I confess my guilt: I moved on from Velvet as I grew older. We tried Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan, and the rest of the national brand ilk. It never worked. Sure, I ate it all, but it all felt processed, plasticized, wrong. When Velvet went out of business in the early 1980s it signaled the end of my public schooling and the end of any chance to keep that childhood taste.

The boy-cherubs who represented my pre-adolescent personalities vanished and I later matured into more sophisticated peanut butters: organics, natural brands (where I would work the little jar, stirring carefully to remix the oils and then refrigerating carefully), even soy butters. They were better for me. And while I could convince myself that I had found an evolved affection for peanut butter, nothing has quite been right. Nothing has quite been my grandmother’s sandwiches or the occasional stolen spoonful when she took her afternoon nap.

That all changed this past week. Idly singing the Velvet jingle, one of my seniors told me that Velvet was back on the shelves! And how lucky could I be to discover that its test markets included Holiday Market and Westborn right in Royal Oak? I began my plan.

I immediately read everything I could on the website, from the couple who wanted to bring back nostalgic brands to Detroit to their up-to-date reports on the salmonella-free condiment. Sure, it was actually produced in Georgia and shipped to Detroit, but what did that matter? It was the authentic peanut butter again. I plotted maps to the nearest store and then, that afternoon, I descended on Westborn Market. I bought them out at $2.99 a jar.

And it was amazing! After all, who knew a childhood could be so easily regained? I found a Hershey bar and dipped. I grabbed a small spoon. And that evening I made a grilled peanut butter sandwich.

Yes, I was in peanut butter heaven, or at least a facsimile of it. My kitchen suddenly began to feel complete, or at least it was vaguely reminiscent of my grandmother’s. I remember the taste even still, nearly 40 years later—the slight saltiness, the graininess of that early mix—and the jar in my hands today wasn’t—no, may not have been quite the same. . . .

Memory is a fallible thing. The Golden Age of Peanut Butter has passed, if it ever was. I begin to wonder, Was there ever a time when such a taste experience really existed? Is it possible that I elevated the original taste to something beyond the peanut? That I’ve somehow fantasized a taste in my memory that never was?

On the other hand, the mismatch of memory and reality may be because the new Velvet company has changed its formula. If that’s so, then what they have labeled as Velvet is not actually Velvet. What they may have done is sold me nostalgia and not my childhood love. Fiends.

Neither, of course, is an acceptable choice. If my memories are wrapped in Velvet, then I must be able to recreate them. The alternative makes me a dreamer or a dupe. I have already bought enough jars for Christmas gifts and a dozen more so that my grandmother can try out the old fudge recipe. I’m not in denial, really.

It’s just that, if the experience is not what I remember, perhaps I’m not creating the original experience. This morning I bought a bottle of Karo dark corn syrup. And now if you’ll excuse me. . . .