Peanuts were grown by the Incas in Peru around 950 BC. They made their ways from South America to Africa and then onward to Spain before finding their way to the American colonies. During 900 BC South American mixed ground peanuts and cocoa.
Butter was invented by Aztecs in the first century AD. Although roasted peanuts have been ground into a paste and mixed with honey and cocoa in South America for centuries, peanut butter as a North American food was apparently invented independently.
Originally, peanut butter was made from a combination of Spanish (whose high percentage of oil makes it especially flavorful) and Virginia peanuts.
The making of peanut butter was largely a local hit or miss operation until the Peanut Butter Manufacturers Association was organized about 1940.
In 1901, inventors F. V Mills and H. S Mills devised a machine that dispensed roasted peanuts for a penny. Peanut butter was dispensed from large open vats in grocery stores; then until World War II, it was sold in tins.
History of peanut butter
