If there is nothing more American than apple pie, then the one food that screams “North America” is peanut butter. Aussies and Europeans cannot fathom our infatuation, beginning with George Washington Carver and lasting through to present-day. The idea of grinding up nuts, seeds, and grains into pastes is hardly new, but peanut butter casts a long, sticky, delicious shadow on this continent.

However, as other nut butters become less obscured by this ubiquitous legume, their availability increases. I have even spied almond butter at Dominion a time or two, but for a real selection, I stopped by The Big Carrot and picked up six varieties.

The first was the Almond butter ($4.69/250g). It had the definitive “sticks to the roof of your mouth” effect that leaves one smacking one’s tongue like a silly (but satisfied) idiot. The almond flavour came only as an aftertaste, and so it made a passable peanut butter substitute. However, that same flavour became more pronounced when spread on bread or eaten with veggies - definitely better straight out of the jar.

Next was the Cashew butter ($4.69/250g) This was not as sticky, and was so distinctively “cashew”-y that I could practically taste the salt. There was less of an aftertaste than the Almond butter; instead it was smooth all the way through. This made it much lighter and more palatable on bread and with carrot sticks.

A combination of the two was sold as (surprise, surprise) Almond Cashew butter, ($5.99/ 250g) which meshed the two very nicely. Light but sticky, and even closer to peanut butter on bread and veggies, this would be my choice for homemade Reese’s cups.

Another combination was the Macadamia Cashew butter, ($5.19/250g) which was far more muted and subtle than I ever thought macadamia nuts could be. Along with the Almond Cashew, this was pretty darn close to peanut butter, and would be my second choice for the Reese’s cups.

Possibly riding on the success of Nutella, Hazelnut butter was also available ($6.59/250g). Now, even in natural peanut butter, the oil will rise to the surface, as well as in most nut butters. Expecting this, I mixed the Hazelnut butter thoroughly, but the oil seemed determined to remain at the top and to drip everywhere. This left the Hazelnut butter hazardously runny. It had a thick, rich flavour on its own that clashed with the veggies, but went amazingly well on the bread, suddenly rendered light and creamy.

After these four, I strayed to the realm of “not actually nuts at all” with the Sunflower Seed butter ($3.39/250g) and the Pumpkin Seed butter ($6.49/250g).

The Sunflower Seed butter had the smoothest texture of the entire selection, but was as sharp to my tastebuds as unground sunflower seeds. The bread had hardly any effect on the taste, relegating it to the category of “spread” as opposed to “comfort food to eat in the middle of the night hunched over the jar with a spoon,” for which peanut butter is ideal.

The Pumpkin Seed butter was much softer and earthy. It stuck to the roof of my mouth pretty effectively, but it too carried that “spread” intensity, despite being the mildest flavour of the batch. I encountered the same oil problems as with the Hazelnut butter, leaving a trail of sunflower oil on my table.

Each butter had about 6 grams of protein and 10% of the RDA of iron. They all also carried 15 grams of fat or more, but no more than 3 grams were saturated fats, and no trans fats in sight. For an average of 190 calories for 30 grams, every choice stacked up better than your average Skippy or Jif, most of which have added sugar.

Nuts To You Nut Butter Inc., out of North Paris, Ontario, manufactured all the varieties except the Pumpkin Seed Butter, which was a product of New World Natural Foods. Unfortunately for those with peanut allergies, none of the varieties were made on peanut-free equipment! While mainstream brands like Quaker and Mars are coming out with peanut-free products, (Chewy bars and Mars bars, respectively) it is still prohibitively expensive for smaller companies to buy their own production equipment, and so these nut butters are still mainly for the adventurous, not the allergic.