One of the things that has plagued me upon my return to Italy is a vain search for “regular” peanut butter around where we live (ok, maybe a bit dramatic, but you’ve got to admit that “plagued” is a word that we should use more often). Amy and I brought with us a couple of jars of JIF Peanut Butter (I’m not going to reveal if it’s creamy or chunky, those fights get as heated as Mac or PC) and every time we give in to the “easy snack” temptation that it is, every scoop from the jar is a reminder that it will not last forever. Oh, and good luck finding it somewhere else.
Even the “international” isle at the larger Auchan only has what I think is something similar from Germany, which tastes kinda funny. (Sigh) What a guy to do? Buying it from the US and sending it here is out. Shipping and all would probably run close to a hundred bucks for a jar and I’m not that desperate yet. There are people that go back and forth to the US more often than we do but I don’t want to be the guy that everybody avoids because he’s going to just “use” you to get peanut butter (i.e. I have not found a subtle way to keep people from feeling like they’re being used to get peanut butter or something else I can’t find here…don’t judge me). Next up, “Grocery Tourism”….that just sounds stupid (editor’s note: I’m not above stupid, just this one in particular). What I’m left with is waiting till I get back to the States and ration what I have for 5 or 6 months which involves scraping every last molecule out of the jar we’ve already “finished”. Well, that was the plan anyway until someone revealed to me the secret. You see, there is a little mix-up going on over here due to the very name of the product. To us it’s peanut butter, you find it in the same isle as jam, jelly, and stuff like that. To them it’s peanut butter, which creates a whole new mystique about it that I never considered. As I mentioned in the post about shopping, they don’t keep products in the same places here because they’re used differently or associated with other things (hence, sugar is on the same isle as cookies and candy bars cause their “sweets”…duh). In this case having the very word “butter” in the title makes them put it where butter is supposed to go, you know, in the cold section…apparently. “Skippy” peanut butter is sold here in the larger stores, but they’re kept in the section with the butter (which can be purchased in blocks the size of toasters by the way). Here’s the proof:
The person that told me about this said that someone even tried to assure them that it didn’t have to be stored that way and that it should go on a shelf somewhere and couldn’t convince them of it. Apparently their slogan really is, “I can’t believe it’s not butter”, and they mean it.
