PEANUT BUTTER by E. B. Melendy

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 27, 1900

PEANUT BUTTER.

By E. B. Melendy

E. B. MELENDY.

(Newport, Ky.)

Peanut butter, instead of dairy butter, has come to be largely used by many persons; but as commonly made (by roasting the nuts), it is worse than the dairy product. The roasting of peanuts fries them in their own fat, producing butyric acid, which causes rheumatism.

Peanuts and chestnuts have a large percentage of starch, and therefore need to be well boiled or steamed, from six to eight hours being required to cook the starch, because of its mixture with the fat, the peanut being similar to beans and other legumes.

A new and good way to make peanut butter is as follows: Heat nuts very slightly (not enough to brown, but enough to blanch), blanch, and grind. Place the meal in a double boiler without the addition of water in the inner vessel, and cook about eight hours. Then put away to use as occasion requires. This meal keeps much longer than does that prepared with water. Before each meal emulsify as much of the cooked meal as you wish, and boil or cook it during the preparation of the meal. This is the best method for bringing out the

sweetness of the peanuts, the oil being brought out in the last cooking.

Peanut butter may be made without a mill, by boiling the nuts with just enough water to cover them; and then mashing them, or putting them through a colander. But a mill is convenient, enabling one by the preceding method to prepare the nuts so that they will keep longer than when emulsified.