The joys of a Buckley breakfast
Writing by treason on Tuesday, 4 of March , 2008 at 5:09 pm
“Two words come to mind when I think of conservative William F. Buckley, who died last week at the age of 82: peanut butter.”
– Michael Winship
“I know that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Skippy’s peanut butter.”
– WFB
“In college, I wrote in the margin of one of my notebooks, ‘Can one be both Catholic and conservative?’ Subsequently, Mr Buckley has taught me the answer is yes, and has done so with style and grace.
And humor. I will never forget his column on the joys of peanut butter. God bless him from a young conservative/libertarian.”
– James Landis
In college, I damn near lived on what I would later discover – much to my delight, incidentally — was “the Buckley breakfast.” I don’t remember precisely when or how I learned of WFB’s appreciation of peanut butter, but there has been much written about it over the years, and although I can locate much of this material I cannot seem to locate the original recipe for “the breakfast.”
”Congenital, absolutely congenital.”
It’s what William F. Buckley, Jr. said about his love of… or perhaps “addiction to” is a better term… peanut butter.
“Mr. Buckley loved many things in this world; far more I suspect than he hated. But one of his great loves was peanut butter. When he married his wife, Patricia, he declared that he would have ‘peanut butter every day of the rest of my life for breakfast.’”
Oh, I know that feeling. Often I’ve said that if I was stuck on a deserted island in the Pacific or locked in a mildewy dungeon for the rest of my life and had to eat just one thing every day until my death, it would have to be peanut butter. I’d considered pizza and even curry at various times over the years, but I always seem to come back to that peanutty spread. Smooth, not chunky. (Although I admit I did go through that chunky phase when I was younger. But I’m older and wiser now, and frankly the smooth variety is imperative when creating what I recall is “the Buckley breakfast.”)
“In Switzerland, the Buckleys entertain between four and eight friends no fewer than three times a week. The affairs exemplify their commitment to good manners and etiquette, offset by an unwillingness to let convention get in the way of a good time. The appetizer might be foie gras, but the hors d’oeuvre is almost always bread bits covered in peanut butter. (‘If peanut butter were as expensive as caviar,’ Bill has said more than once, ‘it would be served at Buckingham Palace teas.’)”
– Chris Weinkopf, Salon, 1999
That breakfast recipe most likely appeared in an article written by Buckley himself – no, not the one in the link above that extols the virtues of Carver and the peanut – but rather the one that revealed not only his favorite brand but the preferred method of serving it. Much time has passed and often I’ve racked my brain trying to remember specifically which brand Buckley cited.
“‘Peanut butter for the toast, please. SKIPPY Peanut Butter.’ The word SKIPPY was underlined twice. ‘And not that damned Jif. I can tell the difference!’”
No, it wasn’t Skippy, although that brand had been his preference at one time. Red Line? No, no, that’s the “L” route in Chicago that goes through Rogers Park – my childhood neighborhood. Red Squirrel? No… no, that’s a tree-dwelling rodent. Criminy, it’s always on the tip of my tongue – well, like peanut butter – but I can never seem to remember it. But happily today I do, thanks to a variety of WFB tributes that mention it.
It was Red Wing.
“When I was a kid, I lived maybe a block away from the old Red Wing plant in Fredonia. One of the most powerful signs of autumn used to be the incredibly strong smell of tomatoes in the air in late summer, as the workers at the plant began processing ketchup.
It turns out that William F. Buckley, the famed Conservative writer and commentator who died last week, considered Red Wing peanut butter - now known as Carriage House - to be the greatest peanut butter on earth. The tale is told in today’s column. That’s high praise for the region, because if you Google Buckley’s name with the key words ‘peanut butter,’ you’ll get a sense of just how much the guy loved the stuff.
There is something wonderful about a man of such refined tastes loving a peanut butter sold as the store brand in both Wegmans and Price Chopper, a peanut butter that can often be purchased for less than a dollar a jar. So let me ask: Was Buckley right? Have you ever tasted a better peanut butter?”
“He also loved peanut butter, and loved knowing others enjoyed it, too.”
That tribute from Brian Williams is lovely. Much like “the Buckley breakfast.” Do I have the recipe in an ancient dead-tree issue of NR somewhere? I probably do. At this point I don’t even know if what I’ve been calling “the Buckley breakfast” is even close to the Maestro’s recipe. It’s a bit sketchy, but I swear I remember the specific ingredients. Buckley stressed the importance of “a sturdy bread.” Oh, absolutely! The second staff of life. Always a sturdy bread, no matter what you’re doing.
So from what I can recall, and what I’ve been preparing and consuming since I was a girl, is this:
A generous slab of sturdy bread, toasted. A generous spread of sweet butter, covered by an even more generous spread of peanut butter. And, to finish it off, a generous drizzle of honey.
This combination, as far as I’m concerned, never fails to enchant. I just cannot describe the sense of satisfaction. What comes close, I suppose, is the feeling I get when I open my mailbox and see my copy of National Review. Ah… utter joy.
But if anyone can direct me to the true recipe, as shared by Mr. Buckley, I would be so grateful.
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