Peanut Butter And Mayonnaise Sandwiches Were A Thing In The '60s, So We Tried Them

"Skippy Peanut Butter and Hellmann's Mayonnaise... Together Tremendous!"

The ’60s were a wild time, and one of the wildest things about it was the food! I mean, look at this ‘60s-era ad we came across from Skippy Peanut Butter and Hellman’s Mayonnaise. It is really something else:

Skippy/Hellmann's

The text reads in part: "Peanut butter and mayonnaise...a brand new flavor promise! Skippy and Hellmann's together make any sandwich taste doubly delicious!"

That's right, they wanted people to eat peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches!

Debmar-Mercury

The ad suggested people try the basic "lunchbox special" — which was just peanut butter and mayo — or "fancy" versions, which augmented the PB and mayo:

Skippy/Hellmann's

Double Crunch: +Bacon and pickles.

Pineapple Topper: +Pineapple and a maraschino cherry.

Apple Fandango: +Sliced apples and marmalade

Crazy Combo: +Salami, sliced eggs, and onions.

Funny Face: +Raisin and carrots.

Since we're the adventurous sorts, we — Asia, Mike, and Krista — decided to give this "brand new flavor promise" a try.

Casey Rackham/BuzzFeed

Also, we're all parents, so we're used to eating weird things and dealing with gross stuff.

Here were our rules — We'd each make (and take a sizable bite out of) four of the sandwiches: the lunchbox version, double crunch, apple fandango, and crazy combo.

First, we made the basic lunchbox version (just peanut butter and mayo):

Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed

Asia

BuzzFeed Parents

I might be in the minority, but it wasn't half bad — well, it was half bad, but it was also half okay. It tasted like sweet and salty. I might make it again if there was a zombie apocalypse and these ingredients were all I had. I could see it being a pregnancy craving food.

Mike

BuzzFeed Parents

I was pretty nervous before taking a bite (I may have thought, Why God, why?! as I raised the slice to my mouth), but I was surprised to find the mayo didn’t change the peanut butter's taste too much. It made it sort of fluffier/creamier. And a little tangy. It wasn't great, but it wasn't the nightmare I expected either.

Krista

BuzzFeed Parents

It tasted like sour peanut butter that's gone bad. Sour. Sweet. Nasty. Would I serve this to my family? Only if I wanted to kill them. Or as a joke.

Next we tried the double crunch (peanut butter and mayo plus bacon and pickles):

Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed

We didn't have pickles for this one, so we improvised with relish.

Asia

BuzzFeed Parents

Because of the relish, it tasted kind of like a hot dog with bacon on it, so I tried to envision myself at a baseball game to see if that helped. Nope, there was no saving it — it was still pretty gross.

Mike

BuzzFeed Parents

Ugh. As I started to chew a thought popped into my head: "This was a bad life choice." Taste-wise it felt confused — the bacon and relish were sort of making sense together, but the peanut butter and mayo were like party crashers who changed the whole vibe for the worse. Basically, it's like something your really drunk or stoned college roommate would make at 2 a.m. with whatever they could find in the fridge.

Krista

BuzzFeed Parents

I hate bacon (don't @ me) and relish, so I knew going into this it was going to be a challenge. After this travesty entered my mouth, my tastebuds started crying. The flavor of the PB and mayo were an afterthought because the relish/bacon combo was so overpowering.

Next up: apple fandango (peanut butter and mayo plus sliced apples and jam):

Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed

Asia

BuzzFeed Parents

The jelly and mayo combo wasn’t too bad, honestly. It's a decent combo. Would eat this if I had to! As in, if my kids made this on Mother’s Day for me, I could probably get the whole thing down. Not so much with the others.

Mike

BuzzFeed Parents

I got a big pocket of mayo in my first bite and was like "Noooooooo," but when I took a second bite with more of the apple, peanut butter, and jelly it wasn't bad. Honestly, this would be a good snack minus the mayo, but the mayo's presence wasn't a total deal breaker.

Krista

BuzzFeed Parents

This one was pretty good since the jelly masked the flavor of the mayo! I couldn't taste it at all. It was like a PB&J sandwich with the crunch of an apple.

And lastly, the crazy combo (peanut butter and mayo plus salami, sliced eggs, and onions).

Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed

Asia

BuzzFeed Parents

I honestly felt like crying. So much was wrong with this sandwich. The boiled egg was a very overpowering addition to it. I couldn't taste anything else even though my mind knew there were other horrible tastes present. I couldn't taste the peanut butter, the salami, or the mayo at all. Just egg. All egg.

Mike

BuzzFeed Parents

Guys...guys...I took too big of a bite. The ad calls this one a "man-sized pleaser," but it's not pleasing anyone. The onion and egg overwhelmed everything else and not in a good way. Honestly, I think the people who invented this knew it was bullshit, and that's why they called it the "crazy combo." Thoughts and prayers to anyone in the '60s who had to sit down to this for dinner.

Krista

BuzzFeed Parents

This one was VERY egg and onion-y. That's all I could taste, so did I like it? Nope.

Final Thoughts:

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Asia

Oh, '60s, you tried it. The original combo wasn't that bad, but once onions, boiled egg, salami, and relish got involved, this flavor experiment got a little out of hand, IMO. If I had a time machine, I would go back and buy out all of the magazines that had this ad in them before some unsuspecting person could get any "doubly delicious" ideas. I will never look at a jar of mayo the same way again.

Mike

This ad seems pretty wacky from the vantage of 2018, but last year Burger King sold mac 'n' cheese deep-fried in a Cheetos crust, and that will undoubtedly seem pretty weird in 55 years.

Still, I can't help but think about how this ad came from a pre-internet age (with a far from developed mass media), so regular folks really had no way to reject it or spread the word that these recipes were not, in fact, "together tremendous." If a brand proposed something like this today, it would be flamed to hell in 15 minutes on Twitter, but back then brands could promote a bad-faith concept like this designed to increase sales of two of their products, and suffer no repercussions for it.

Krista

What were they thinking back then?! In all honestly, I don't know why or how this ad got approved. It was a good effort, but PB and mayo will NEVER BE A THING. Oh, and I won't be able to eat peanut butter for a while now thanks to this little experiment.

Together Tremendous!

Torres/BuzzFeed