MediumComfort Food?. Pondering peanut butter and jelly | by Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle | the Challenged | Medium
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the Challenged

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Comfort Food?

3 min readApr 2, 2026

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Photo by Abril Chavira on Unsplash

April 2: National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day celebrates a classic food favorite. The average American will eat more than 2,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the time they graduate from high school. Attributed to Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the quote is a reference to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. When you are 85 — I’m soon to be 86 — you tend to remember old and odd things. It comes of being born before the baby boomers.

As for the challenge, I don’t remember submitting it. I don’t know why I would know — or remember — that there is a day (actually two days — wasn’t there one in January?) to commemorate peanut butter. And that factoid that the average American consumes more than 2,000 PB&J sandwiches before donning a cap and gown seems dubious. Which “average American”? One in North America? In the USA? In South America?

I mentioned in that previous PB&J story that peanuts are not nuts but legumes. A reader commented that they didn’t know it. I hope I have helped that person make more informed dietary decisions.

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Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle
Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle

Written by Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle⁠

I am an octogenarian and humanist in a world that resembles an absurdist play. I hope to survive until after the curtain falls and reason returns. Am I deluded?

the Challenged
the Challenged

Published in the Challenged

This publication is a place for writers who enjoy a challenge.