President Jimmy Carter's Favorite Dessert Was A Throwback To His Peanut Farming Past

The late Jimmy Carter was known for his unconventional career trajectory from a peanut farmer in Georgia to the president of the United States (believe it or not, he wasn't the first peanut farmer to become president). That particular background influenced his political thinking, as he paid careful attention to agricultural issues during his time in the White House; but what's less known is that it also influenced his taste in food, like his favorite sweet treat.

Carter's favorite dessert was reportedly peanut butter pie — more specifically, the meringue-topped recipe made by his wife, Rosalynn. His love of peanut butter ice cream has also been noted (this widely available brand is our favorite), but it seems that pie was his favorite. Whether or not it's possible to replicate the exact recipe is debatable; it was apparently published in the Fort Worth Star newspaper in 1977, but a verifiable copy of that is hard to track down. So, it's believed that the recipes that claim to be Rosalynn's version are reconstructions of that possibly lost recipe, although they probably come close to the original.

Carter's recipe stands out for having multiple layers, yet being quick and easy to put together. You can use a store-bought crust or make your own standard version, and then mix up peanut butter and powdered sugar as the base layer. The middle layer is a custard with egg whites, milk, butter, sugar, and cornstarch, and it's topped off with a meringue (whipped egg whites with sugar). It only needs around 10 minutes in the oven. The top should be a little brown, like any good meringue pie, and you'll want to chill it for a few hours before serving.

It's safe to say that, while Rosalynn Carter has a great recipe, she wasn't the first to think of making a peanut butter pie. It's mostly associated with the American South, where peanuts are a common crop, and probably came about sometime after industrially produced peanut butter was invented. While some form of peanut butter can be traced to Aztec times (you can stop believing the myth that George Washington Carver invented it), the processes for milling it en masse were created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, paving the way for peanut butter to be a household staple. The pie became popular in the '60s and '70s, but was likely devised before that.

Rosalynn's version of the pie stands out as a hybrid, thanks to the peanut-free layers of custard and meringue. But this is just one take on the dessert, and many peanut butter pie recipes actually take a simpler approach. Some versions just whip together peanut butter with cream cheese and sugar, along with either Cool Whip or cream. Such recipes often use a graham cracker crust or one with crushed cookies like Oreos. Another common addition that Rosalynn's recipe skips is to add a chocolate topping in some form. But no matter which recipe you use, any good peanut butter pie should showcase the peanuts — just as Jimmy Carter would've wanted.