Question: Why did you write a book about the history of peanut butter?
Jon Krampner: My first two books were biographies of tormented geniuses in the arts who lapsed into obscurity because of drinking problems. Peanut butter may make you fat, but it won’t give you cirrhosis of the liver.
I settled on a pop-culture history of peanut butter because I admired books like John McPhee’s Oranges, Mark Kurlansky’s Cod, and Steve Almond’s Candyfreak. Researching the field, I was surprised to learn that no one had already done one. There are brief illustrated pamphlets for children on how peanut butter is made. There are peanut butter cookbooks for adults. Andrew F. Smith, another Columbia author, has a very good chapter on the early history of peanut butter in his book about peanuts. But that was all – I saw a niche that hadn’t been filled, and I filled it.
Q: Is peanut butter really the all-American food?:
JK: Americans aren’t the only people who like it, but almost no one likes it more than we do. The two exceptions are Canadians and the Dutch, who eat more peanut butter on a per capita basis than we do. The Dutch like it because Indonesia was their colony for centuries, and it’s just a short step from peanut-based satay sauces to peanut butter. My theory is that the Canadians picked up the habit from us. They like it more for breakfast, though, whereas Americans generally eat it for lunch.
In terms of sheer volume, though, we’re the champs: Americans eat more than a billion pounds a year. According to the Southern Peanut Growers, a trade organization, that’s enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon (although they don’t say to what depth). Americans have a primordial fondness for peanut butter. During the Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella debacle of 2008-09, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa thundered, “What’s more sacred than peanut butter?”
The aptly named Steve Almond interviewed Krampner for The Nervous Breakdown and identifies himself “who eats a tremendous amount of peanut butter,” In admiration of the book and its author, Almond writes, “I’ve never met Jon Krampner, which is lucky for him because if I ever did meet him I might very well kiss him on the mouth.”
Likewise, in his review for The New Yorker‘s blog Page-Turner, Jon Michaud declares himself “a Skippy Man.” He too, though in a less demonstrative way, praises Creamy and Crunchy, calling it “an enjoyable and informative new history of peanut butter.”
In his review, Michaud also recounts some of the history of peanut butter from its beginnings as a health food to the very wealthy to the rise of the “Big Three” (Skippy, Jif, and Peter Pan) to its recent surge in popularity during the recession, “Cheap and nutritious, [peanut butter] the perfect food for hard times.”
In the following excerpt, Michaud recounts the early days of peanut butter and how it became an “all-American food”:
Peanut butter, the everyman staple, which contains neither butter nor nuts (peanuts are legumes), originated as a health food of the upper classes. First created for sanitariums like John Harvey Kellogg’s Western Health Reform Institute, it satisfied the need for a protein-rich food that did not have to be chewed. Wealthy guests at those institutions popularized it among the well-heeled. But there were economic pressures to expand peanut-butter consumption more democratically. Once the boll weevil devastated cotton cultivation at the turn of the century, Southern farmers were encouraged by George Washington Carver and others to adopt the peanut as a replacement crop. A burgeoning market for peanut butter substantially increased demand for their harvests. While both Kellogg and Carver have been touted as “the father of peanut butter,” Krampner makes a case for George Bayle, a St. Louis businessman who, in 1894, became the first to produce and sell it as a snack food. Peanut butter was featured in the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis and soon thereafter Beech-Nut and Heinz introduced it nationally. By 1907, thirty-four million pounds of peanut butter were produced, up from two million in 1899.
Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food on our blog, Twitter, and Facebook. We are also offering a FREE copy of the book to one winner.
To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address. We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!
“My reasons for taking on this project include the fact that the journey that led Malvo to this place is one that begs for understanding.”—Carmeta Albarus
There was no doubt as to whether or not Lee Boyd Malvo committed the crimes for which he had been charged. There was no doubt as to whether or not he pulled the trigger in many of the shootings. The question that loomed for his defense, and for those around the world who had followed the horrible case, was why. Finding the answer was further complicated by the fact that without Malvo’s cooperation, it would be difficult to mount any meaningful defense. Malvo had provided the authorities with a full confession, taking responsibility for all the murders, and he had continued to maintain his guilt. Experts who had met with Malvo and assessed the situation suggested that it would take years for him to come to any true understanding of himself, separate from John Muhammad.
At the time of my appointment I was informed that my focus in the case would be limited to investigating and tracking Malvo’s life in the islands of Jamaica, where he was born, and Antigua, where he met John Muhammad. I was told that there would be little value in my meeting with Malvo, given his lack of cooperation. I challenged that position, for even as I recognized the frustration his attorneys might have been feeling, I knew from many years of professional experience that commonality of culture and ethnicity goes a long way in establishing trust, and trust is the hallmark of any successful client–attorney relationship. “I believe that you and your client will be better served if I played a more central role in meeting and working with him,” I remember telling Craig Cooley
I worked hundreds of grueling hours and finally established a relationship of trust with Lee Boyd Malvo. Once that trust was there, Malvo was more inclined to cooperate with his defense team. Ultimately, as previously stated, he was found guilty of capital murder in the death of Linda Franklin, but he was spared the death penalty and instead received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
The end of the trial did not signal an end to my interaction with Malvo, however; our communication has extended to the present time. The work that I have done with offenders over the years has fostered my belief that even in the worst of us there is the possibility of redemption. My continued contacts and interactions with Malvo contribute to an even better understanding of this.
“That son of a bitch just cost us the election.”—Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican vice-presidential candidate after the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate
On the occasion of tonight’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, we thought it might be worthwhile to look back at the first televised debate via Alan Schroeder’sPresidential Debates: Fifty Years of High-Risk TV. (For Alan Schroeder’s take on the continuing relevance of presidential debates read his piece in the New York Times, Not Perfect, but They Serve a Purposeor watch him onCurrent TV)
In hisintroductionSchroeder recounts Nixon’s now famous (or infamous, depending on your political persuasion) pallid appearance. Perhaps less well-known is the bad advice Nixon received from none other than his running mate Henry Cabot Lodge:
Beyond production considerations, an eleventh-hour phone call from running mate Henry Cabot Lodge apparently helped steer Nixon onto the wrong tactical course. Lodge, who had debated Kennedy in their senatorial race in 1952, advised Nixon to take the high road and “erase the assassin image” that had dogged him throughout his political career. And so it was that Richard Nixon adopted a posture of conciliation, even deference, toward his fellow debater. “The things that Senator Kennedy has said many of us can agree with,” Nixon declared in his opening statement. “I can subscribe completely to the spirit that Senator Kennedy has expressed tonight.” At one point, the Republican nominee chose to forgo a response altogether, passing up the opportunity to rebut his opponent’s remarks.
“Thank you, gentlemen. This hour has gone by all too quickly.” With this coda from Howard K. Smith, the historic encounter drew to a close. In Texas, Henry Cabot Lodge, the running mate who had counseled gentility in his predebate phone call to Nixon, was heard to say, “That son of a bitch just cost us the election.”
The tenth anniversary of the the sniper shootings in Washington, D.C. has brought renewed attention to John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo’s killing spree, which terrified the city. Two people with an especially close relationship to the case are Carmeta Albarus and Jonathan Mack authors of The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper. On October 3, Politics and Prose in Washington D.C. is hosting an event with the authors.
Carmeta Albarus was called in by the judge to serve on Malvo’s defense team and instructed by the court to uncover any information that might help mitigate the death sentence the teen faced. Albarus met with Malvo numerous times and repeatedly traveled back to his homeland of Jamaica, as well as to Antigua, to interview his parents, family members, teachers, and friends.
In a recent and much-discussed interview with The Washington Post (see below), Malvo credits Albarus with restoring his identity and sense of self. He explains that before he met her he was unable to understand what he had become and what he had done.
In the interview, Malvo also details his relationship with John Muhammad and the process in which he was brainwashed and the events leading up to the killings. Malvo points to his difficult upbringing, lack of a steady home life, and how his sense of abandonment made him “ripe” to fall under Muhammad’s control. However, Malvo also expresses a sense of guilt and takes responsibility for what he did, “I was a monster. If you look up the definition, that’s what a monster is. I was a ghoul. I was a thief. I stole people’s lives. I did someone else’s bidding just because they said so. . . . There is no rhyme or reason or sense.”
“The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo offers the unabashed truth about children who face emotional and psychological scars resulting from feelings of rejection, abandonment, and other trauma by being left home by parents who immigrated overseas.” — Geneive Brown Metzger
This week our featured book is The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo by Carmeta Albarus, MSW, LCSW, with forensic analysis by Jonathan H. Mack, Psy.D..
To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address. We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!
Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper and we are offering a FREE copy of the book to one winner.
“Obama is a figure with the screen presence of a film star (like Diana). Palin is not, she is the quintessential TV actor, from sitcom, talk show, reality TV.”—Daniel Herwitz
In the chapter, “Tocqueville on the Bridge to Nowhere,” fromHeritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony, Daniel Herwitz turns his attention to how heritage has been employed in American culture and politics. In the following excerpt, he writes about how Barack Obama has drawn upon the image and iconic stature of Abraham Lincoln. Later in the chapter he compares Obama with Sarah Palin:
Obama was staged as Lincoln before, during, and after his inauguration, taller than his public, monumental, in communion with that oversized, larger-than-life Lincoln Memorial in Washington. There are three Lincolns in American history: the actual one, steering the nation through its darkest of times, writing the Gettysburg Address on the train, the one etched into the monument, larger than Lincoln himself, who was already larger than life, sculpted from marble, his immortal words made immortal by being scripted into that stone, then the Lincoln of the cinema, Henry Fonda, Raymond Massey, the Lincoln dark and dulcet, silver in the silver screen, glowing through the aesthetics of the medium. American heritage is all three: the man, the monument, the movie.
They believe that, while no expense has been spared in the creation of the 9/11 memorial, it’s too abstract to fulfill its intended purpose:
The Manhattan memorial is . . . disturbingly macabre and unnecessarily abstract. It features water falling 30 feet (for no particular symbolic reason) into a pair of giant, ominous, square holes. Its two representations of the building “footprints” are exactly alike, a redundancy that reflects the towers but evokes no real memorial significance. Only the names of the dead, etched in marble, have the kind of meaning likely to touch visitors; the names of Todd Beamer (the Flight 93 passenger who famously called out, “Let’s roll!”) and Father Mychal Judge (the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department) have been rubbed so often that they have already been repaired more than once.
There were missed opportunities to embrace the clash of opinions in a democracy instead of postmodern abstraction and bland patriotism. Why not preserve the piece of the outer wall of one tower that stood majestically on the pile, which former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Philippe de Montebello described as a “relic of destruction” and “in its own way, a masterpiece”? And why not include some of the beautiful and spontaneous personal memorials from Union Square, some of which are preserved in the New York State Museum in Albany and the New York City Archives (of all places)?
On Friday, Hannah Gurman, author of The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond appeared on Fox News. Among other issues, Gurman discussed such notable dissenters as George Kennan and John Brady Kiesling, who objected to the Iraqi invasion. She also discussed how the level of dissent has and has not changed during the Obama administration and in light of Wikileaks.
In The Dissent Papers, Hannah Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America’s reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats’ reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The Dissent Papers recovers these diplomats’ invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing.
In light of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” in the military, Belkin finds the Boy Scouts’ policy “shocking”. The Scouts’ exclusionary tradition toward gays is sustained, Belkin argues, by the fantasy of militarized masculinity. In part, the creation of the Scouts was motivated by fears that the United States was becoming too feminine. It was believed that the Scouts would help prepare boys for military service. Aaron Belkin suggests that military values continue to shape the organization:
The Boy Scouts of America has always taken pride in its promotion of military values like hierarchy, conformity and bravery to prepare boys for manhood, and its Web site exalts that, “Boy Scouts prove themselves in an environment that challenges their courage and tests their nerve.” Understood from this perspective, the intimate, longstanding partnership between the military and scouting is not just about recruiting, but reflects a more profound effort to inculcate boys with martial priorities.
“Respect for the troops is important. But when respect turns into uncritical idealization, that can easily slip into a mode of thinking in which people assume that what’s good for the military is good for America.”—Aaron Belkin
He begins the interview by discussing how his own efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” (DADT) led to him writing Bring Me Men. He wrote the book, in part, to apologize for his activism to end DADT required him to glorify the military and U.S. foreign policy. Belkin argues that an unthinking glorification of the troops leads to a greater militarization of U.S. society. He worries that an assumption that what is good for the military is good for the country leads to a militarization of society, greater spending on defense, and a greater willingness to go to war.
In terms of sexual violence in the U.S. military, Belkin conservatively estimates that there are 2,200 incidents of male-male each year. The military’s hierarchical structure creates a slave/master dynamic and when combined with its emphasis on violence, the likelihood of rape increases. Belkin argues that the emphasis on masculine culture leads to a silencing of this issue:
The male warrior is supposed to have a completely impermeable, sealed-up body that cannot be penetrated by anything. But at the same time, male warriors are often expected to endure rape, to “take it like a man.” And, these opposing expectations illustrate the broader range of contradictions associated with military masculinity, in that troops are expected to be masculine and feminine, civilized and barbaric, dirty and clean, and so on.
“American warrior identities are contradictory, in that service members are expected to be civilized and barbaric, dominant and subordinate, rapist and rape victim. They are told to be paragons of virtue, and we express shock when they misbehave.” — Aaron Belkin
Today we are re-posting an earlier essay from Aaron Belkin, author of Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001.
Reminder you can still win aFREEcopy of Bring Me Men. For more on the book, you can also read anexcerpt .
Recently, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta invoked a familiar theme in responding to photographs of U.S. service members posing alongside body parts of Afghan militants when he asserted that, “This is not who we are.” In March, when an American soldier was accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said exactly the same thing. And, more than a century ago, in 1902, Secretary of War Elihu Root reacted to accusations of torture among U.S. troops in the Philippines in a similar manner.
American officials often use the same formula to dismiss accounts of military atrocities, attributing misconduct to rogue service members – “rotten apples” – rather than anything fundamental about the troops or the armed forces. While the military does not avowedly embrace cruelty, and while most service members follow the rules most of the time, a more plausible, if radioactive, explanation for the consistency of stories about misconduct is that U.S. troops sometimes engage in brutal, sadistic behavior because of how they are trained. Official disclaimers notwithstanding, cruelty is a part of “who we are.”
“Americans have been encouraged to understand military masculinity as an archetypal expression of democracy. But there is something profoundly undemocratic about military masculinity and the way in which public adulation of it is premised on a disavowal of its blemishes.”—Aaron Belkin
Professor George Brown, who has studied and counseled transgender veterans for more than two decades at the Johnson City, Tennessee, Veterans Administration hospital, has found that some pre-operative male-to-female (MTF) transgender service members in the U.S. armed forces have volunteered for dangerous missions to prove their masculinity. Brown says that prior to reaching a stage of acceptance, transgender persons often seek to prove to themselves that they are not transgender, a phenomenon he refers to as the “flight from transgender.” Pre-operative MTF transgender veterans told him that during the Vietnam War, they sought to demonstrate the correctness of their given, biological sex by affirming their masculinity beyond doubt. To do so, they volunteered as “tunnel rats” who infiltrated underground enemy complexes, pistol in hand, to kill as many Vietnamese as possible. They believed that if they lived, they would prove their masculinity, which in turn would confirm their biological status as men and hence not transgender, and that they would not need to go through the painful and stigmatized sex transition from man to woman. And if they died, that would be an acceptable price to pay for achieving the status of a real man. Brown told a journalist that “They’re so uncomfortable with who they are that they’d rather have it beaten out of them or die
trying….”
Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of the book and we are also offering a FREE copy of Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001 to one winner.
To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address (U.S. and Canadian mailing addresses only, unfortunately). We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!
For more on the book, you can read the first chapter.
Here’s what Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War wrote about
One of the smartest analysts of today’s United States military, Aaron Belkin challenges the too-simple presumption that an uncomplicated militarized masculinity dominates American soldiers’ lives. Instead, through grittily graphic cases, he reveals a dense web of gender confusions and contradictions that foster a culture of obedience inside the military, while nurturing a dangerously undemocratic set of myths among civilians. A timely, significant book.
The salon will be hosted by Michael K. Busch, who teaches in the departments of political science, international studies and the master’s program in international relations at The City College of New York. In addition to Busch’s discussion with Gurman interested readers are invited to submit their questions in the open, online discussion.
Gurman’s book provides a fascinating history of dissent in the state department focusing on such legendary figures as George Kennan, the “China Hands,” George Ball and others. Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Her book recovers their writings and not only provides a history of dissenting voices in the State Department but also explores the role of dissent itself in the age of wikileaks.
As background, below is an excerpt from the CBS news report, in which an officer discusses how various plainclothes policeman were on the take. The clip also includes a short interview with Xaviera Hollander (aka Madame X and The Happy Hooker)
And for more background, here is the trailer for Serpico (1973), which starred Al Pacino as Frank Serpico. Serpico’s contribution to a New York Times story on the police as well as his testimony to the Knapp Commission revealed the depth of the corruption in the New York City Police Department.
To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address (U.S. and Canadian mailing addresses only, unfortunately). We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!
In this account, both colorful and accurate, of New York City’s police corruption scandals uncovered by the Knapp Commission in the 1970′s, Michael Armstrong … has told not only a tautly drawn and engaging story, but also a cautionary tale for our own time. The characters — Frank Serpico, the Mayflower Madam, Detective Robert Leuci — leap from the page; the lesson — that constant supervision and vigilance are necessary to assure honesty in those who enforce the law — resonates in every chapter.
Today we have a guest post from Aaron Belkin, author of Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001. Belkin is associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University and director of the Palm Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. In Bring Me Men, Belkin delves into the contradictions inherent in America’s conception of military masculinity.
Recently, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta invoked a familiar theme in responding to photographs of U.S. service members posing alongside body parts of Afghan militants when he asserted that, “This is not who we are.” In March, when an American soldier was accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said exactly the same thing. And, more than a century ago, in 1902, Secretary of War Elihu Root reacted to accusations of torture among U.S. troops in the Philippines in a similar manner.
American officials often use the same formula to dismiss accounts of military atrocities, attributing misconduct to rogue service members – “rotten apples” – rather than anything fundamental about the troops or the armed forces. While the military does not avowedly embrace cruelty, and while most service members follow the rules most of the time, a more plausible, if radioactive, explanation for the consistency of stories about misconduct is that U.S. troops sometimes engage in brutal, sadistic behavior because of how they are trained. Official disclaimers notwithstanding, cruelty is a part of “who we are.” (more…)
