Nuts to You, Brother

You were almost right that “Peanut butter was invented in 1880 by a physician who wanted a high-protein food for his patients” (“Our Daily Spread,” March 10). That man was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, medical director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, but his youngest brother, Will Keith Kellogg, actually ground out the product in the experimental kitchen of the sanitarium as one of his many collateral duties as business manager. Dr. J. H. Kellogg put his name on the patent application, just as he did later with flaked cereal products and many other inventions of his staff.

From 1918 until 1926 I lived just across Wood Street from my Uncle “Doc.” That he was a colorful character, there’s no denying. His unvarying uniform was a white suit and white shoes, winter and summer. He said white allowed the beneficial rays of the sun to penetrate to his skin. With his sulfur-crested cockatoo perched on his shoulder, he cut an impressive figure, despite his five-foot-four height. Soon you will be able to see a reincarnation of Dr. J. H. in the person of Anthony Hopkins in the movie version of “The Road to Wellville.”

Actually, the year that W. K. ground out some roasted peanuts and took the resultant product to his brother for approval had to be a bit later than 1880, although it was in that decade. W. K. had just returned from a stint in Dallas, where he had spent the previous year as manager of a broom company and was not yet quite out of his teens. J. H. smelled the peanut concoction, tasted it and pronounced it “peanut butter.” As W. K. left to return to the kitchen, J. H. hastily asked, “How did you cook the peanuts?” To which W. K. responded that he had roasted them, of course. J. H. thundered, “ Steam them !” over W. K.’s futile protests. Steamed peanuts failed to capture the zesty tang of the roasted product. That’s why peanut butter failed to become a popular item on the menu at the sanitarium and only a couple of companies were making it in 1899.

NORMAN WILLIAMSON JR.

Los Angeles