Peanut butter jelly fish

Peanut Butter and Jelly Fish

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Fish

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Peanut Butter and Jellyfish were the best of friends— best of friends who spent their days exploring up, down, around, and through their grand ocean home. Unluckily for them, though, they lived near Crabby. “You guys swim like humans!” he would taunt as they slipped past. Peanut Butter and Jellyfish did their best to ignore the heckler. “Did you hear something?” asked Jellyfish. “No, must be the current,” said Peanut Butter. Crabby was relentless. “You guys smell like rotten barnacles! Pee-yew!” “My grandma called. She wants her run-walk shoes back!” “I’ve seen sea snails swim with more style.” “What a bunch of bubbleheads!” Jellyfish puffed up his chest and said, “Driftwood and sea stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt us. ” “You’re an invertebrate! You don’t even have any bones,” huffed Crabby as he marched along his favorite rock by himself. One day, as Peanut Butter and Jellyfish set out on an excursion to the great reef, they swam past Crabby’s perch. They braced themselves for the usual insults. But all was quiet. Then they heard the faint sound of sobbing up ahead. It was Crabby! He was caught in a lobster trap. And it was being lifted to the surface! “I-I-I’m scared,” he cried. Surely, he was doomed. “Should we help?” asked Jellyfish. The two friends shared a look. “He is in serious trouble,” said Peanut Butter. “You’re right. We have to help!” exclaimed Jellyfish. “But how?” “I have a plan,” said Peanut Butter. “Follow me.” They swam up to the lobster trap. Peanut Butter used his tail to unlock the trap’s gate, but Crabby didn’t budge. “Come on. You’re free!” said Peanut Butter. “But-but . . . I can’t swim,” confessed Crabby. “And I’m afraid of heights.” The lobster trap was getting pulled closer to the surface! “Plan B!” exclaimed Jellyfish. He worked furiously on untying the trap’s knot. “Hurry!” cried Peanut Butter. “I can see the fishermen above!” Just when all hope was lost . . . The knot gave out, sending the trap plummeting! Peanut Butter and Jellyfish grabbed ahold and lowered it to safety. Crabby’s legs wobbled as he returned to his favorite rock. “Th-thanks, you t-two,” he stuttered. “Y-You know, I’m sorry for saying those mean things,” Crabby said. He may have been afraid of heights, but Crabby was brave enough to apologize. “I-I guess I was jealous. You guys seem like you’re always having so much fun explorin’ the open waters.” “Well, there’s plenty to explore close to the ocean floor!” said Jellyfish. Peanut Butter and Jellyfish still swam up, down, around, and through. But it was on the ocean floor that they found their greatest treasure!

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Peanut Butter and Jellyfish | Smithsonian Ocean

Personal Perspectives

by Nancy Knowlton

All over the world, people have been witnessing gigantic blooms of tens of thousands of jellyfish where once there were only a few. Fishers find them clogging their nets and costing them dearly. In Japan, giant jellyfish capable of reaching six feet across even capsized a boat that tried to bring them aboard. Where are these stinging menaces coming from and why are they everywhere?

Jellyfish explosions are often triggered by overfishing of small fish, like sardines and anchovies, which compete with jellyfish for food. Jellyfish are also more tolerant of low oxygen conditions than fishes, and so can survive in polluted “dead zones.” What’s more, once they become super-abundant, they snack on the larvae (babies) of fish, keeping fish numbers down. The result is an ecological flip-flop that is hard to reverse. Not surprisingly there is concern that when a huge jellyfish population moves in—there goes the neighborhood!

So, are jellyfish a dead end in the food chain? Fortunately, not always. Off the coast of southwestern Africa, where jellyfish have replaced sardines, at least one fish benefits. The five-inch long bearded goby spends its day on the seafloor in the oxygen-depleted and toxic mud where most fish, including their predators, cannot survive. While there, they graze on worms and mats of bacteria, but they can’t digest their food because they shut down the water flow over their gills to keep from getting poisoned. At night they come up to the surface for a breath of fresh air and a very jelly meal. The gobies are able to hide among the stinging tentacles of the jellyfish at the surface, which protect them from being eaten by larger fish and in addition provide about 60 percent of the gobies’ diet. This makes these gobies a keystone for the ecosystem; by chomping on jellyfish they create a link in the food chain between jellyfish and the seabirds, mammals and larger fish that eat the gobies.

While predators of the jellyfish are rare, they are not limited to the bearded goby. Over 120 species of fish and over 30 other kinds of animals feed at least occasionally on jellyfish. The heaviest fish, the ocean sunfish, and the largest marine turtle, the critically endangered leatherback, are jellyfish specialists. Mushroom corals have recently been seen feeding on jellies off the Red Sea coast of Eilat, Israel. They suck jellyfish over half their size through their mouths and digest them whole. During coral spawning in Panama, we spotted a crab feasting on a moon jelly.

As overfishing becomes the norm and jellyfish spread like weeds, one solution is to add humans to the list of major jellyfish predators. In fact, jellyfish have been eaten by the Chinese since 300 AD, and 425,000 tonnes (more than 900 million U.S. pounds) are already harvested each year, making their way into products from salads in Houston to ice creams in Japan. Perhaps we aren’t far away from packing peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches for lunch (as long as you aren’t allergic to peanuts!).

Editors Note: This post was co-written with Amanda Feuerstein, program coordinator in the office of the Sant Chair for Marine Science.  Dr. Nancy Knowlton is the Sant Chair for Marine Science at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Their blog series is based on Dr. Knowlton's book Citizens of the Sea, which celebrates “the Wondrous Creatures from the Census of Marine Life.”

November 2010

Tags: Fisheries Jellyfish, Anemones & Relatives Citizens of the Sea

Step by Step Recipe Peanut Butter Jelly Bread

bread with peanut butter and jelly

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Kids and kids-at-heart love it! Be sure to use jelly, the sugar content of the jam will hinder the success of this recipe. You can use any flavor of jelly you like.

Parameters

• preparation: 5 minutes
• cook: 3 hours
• total: 3 hours 5 minutes
• servings: 12
• Yield: 1 - 1.5 lb loaf

Ingredients

• 1 glass of water
• 1 ½ tablespoon vegetable oil
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup blackberry jelly
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole grain flour
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast

* 1 oz = 28. 35 grams

* 1 lb = 453.59 grams

Specifications

• Preparation: 5 minutes
• cook:3 hours
• total: 3 hours 5 minutes
• Servings:12
• Yield: 1 - 1.5 lb. loaf

Ingredients

• 1 glass of water
• 1 ½ tablespoon vegetable oil
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup blackberry jelly
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole grain flour
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast

* 1 oz = 28. 35 grams

* 1 lb = 453.59 grams

• Place the ingredients in the pan of the bread maker in the order suggested by the manufacturer.
• Choose from sweet, raisin or base setting. To begin.

pooh528

We love this recipe! The bread has a very nice texture, you can use any flavor of jelly. Ends with big still warm melted PB on them :) Perfect for PB&J for lunch.

Sarah Jo

I really thought I could do it. The only thing I changed was that I used strawberry jam instead of blackberry jelly. It wasn't a success. Generally. What a loss.

Annarie

Well... At first I was a little apprehensive about making this bread, but I decided to try it as a snack for my two little sisters when they got off the bus. I used creamy peanut butter and Concord grape jelly and baked it on the "basic" setting of my bread maker. It was very wet and difficult to cut. It seemed burnt on the sides, but the top and middle felt a bit undercooked (same issue as the other reviewer - maybe we share the same bread maker?) Neither I nor my little sisters liked buttering it though they both love the plain white and wheat bread we make weekly in the bread machine. It's important to understand that PB&J flavors are very subtle and unless you tell someone it's peanut butter and jelly bread, they'll probably think your bread's taste is just "off"....but... In the morning it's very nice to make cinnamon toast. Also, I would suggest just making a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of this recipe.

pomplemousse

This is more like quick bread than yeast bread, so I decided to treat it that way. I had blueberry jam so I used it, but since the sender mentioned that the sugar content of the jam is different, I added 2 more tablespoons of sugar to make up the difference (I don't really know if this is correct, but this is what I did). I made the dough in the bread maker and took it out to finish. The dough was very sticky and I thought about adding flour but decided to leave it as is and see how it works. Last night I made the dough quite late, so I put it in a bread box and left it in the fridge overnight. This morning I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes and then checked every 10 minutes with a toothpick until it was clean. It ended up taking 70 minutes to bake. What I ended up with was a moist, sweet loaf that tasted like peanut butter with a hint of jam. It also has a few chunks of peanuts in it since I used chunky peanut butter. If I baked it in a bread maker, I'm not sure how well it would turn out, although my bread maker usually handles yeast bread well. However, this bread is different, so I think that may be why others have not been as happy with it. This is not bread that I would just eat; you need butter, honey or jam, but it's not bad with changes. Thanks for the recipe!

LCLARKE

I thought it tasted good, but it was overdone on the outside and underdone on the inside. I used the basic setup on my machine. If I experiment with it again, I will try it on a sweet setting.

Jennifer Napoli Horvath

I chose this bread especially for my son who doesn't eat anything. I used milk instead of water in the recipe to add more nutrients to the bread. He didn't like it until I put jelly on him. I tried it myself and it didn't taste too good, like Burnt Peanuts (and it wasn't burned!). After I tried it again with the jelly it had a definite change in flavor...so much better!

Melissa Rhuby Raddatz

It tasted really bad and I won't be making it again. But the birds loved it.

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