There are two food items I miss greatly while traveling abroad: Mexican food and peanut butter.
Peanut butter is one of those strange local culinary loves which isn’t much appreciated outside its country of origin–sort of like vegemite and Australia.
Growing up with the tasty spread I simply imagined it was available to hungry ten-year old kids all over the world (except in China where the children were always starving). But it wasn’t until I finally left the country for the first time that I discovered no one outside of America likes peanut butter (again, sort of like the Australia and their foul vegemite).
When it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t find any peanut butter to eat while backpacking through Europe, I was overcome with what always happens when faced with something you can’t have: you want it even more.
The funny thing is that when I finally returned home from living abroad for many years and could eat all the peanut butter I wanted, the urge to do so had completely vanished. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I actually spread some atop a slice of bread. But, I bet if I headed out on the road again for an extended time, I will start lusting after it once again.
And so it was with fond nostalgia that I came across an article in Iceland Review about an American expat living in Reykjavik who, you guessed it, is lusting after peanut butter. Her experience finding a palatable jar was no different than the anguish I went though, with one exception: she eventually found a jar for a whopping $11 and an expiration date that suggested it had been sitting on the store shelf for a very long time.
I’ll leave you with one quote of hers I found both amusing and astute;
“The texture, smell, and taste of peanut butter pretty much grosses out any self-respecting Icelander I’ve encountered in my year here, which has been a lot. They don’t get peanut butter in the same way that I don’t get hardfiskur (dried and salted fish), sheep balls, or rotten shark. Since we mutually agree on that, we’re on the right track.”