First off, I actually agree with you that strawberry is better, though for strawberry I usually use jam or preserves. I do like grape jelly fine though.

Second, I’ll use this opportunity to describe the best way to make a PB&J. You need three pieces of bread and a toaster. Toast one and only one piece of bread. PB goes on the untoasted, and J on both sides of the toast, which now goes in the middle. Adds texture without altering the flavor profile or making it even messier like potato chips, and it improves the bread-to-filling ratio. Using PB-only on the untoasted slices also makes for a moisture barrier to keep the J from soaking through.

I was cycling through a bunch of different jams and preserves for a bit. Apricot preserves ended up being my favorite and is my default now. Strawberry is really low on my personal preference list, well below grape.

I have a food processor - making peanut butter from peanuts is so simple.

Every jam or jelly I’ve tried works. Strawberry and blackberry are my favorites.

I canned some peach jam recently, and it was pretty good, too.

I like peanut butter with strawberry rhubarb. The extra tartness really brings it for me.

Ooooooo, damn! Homie in here looking to fight! Absolutely brilliant unpopular opinion; simple, direct, and easy to discuss.

Aight, I gotta say up front that I am picky about strawberries in general, and it is rare for preserves or jams (I’ve never had a strawberry jelly, but I’m not that kind of asshole to insist that a pb&j can only use jelly) to meet my standards.

I disagree with strawberry anything being better than grape jams or jellies on two standards. First is that food preferences are always subjective, and thus we can only rarely say anything other than “better for me”

The second is essentially subjective as well, as it goes to those preferences that I have.

A pb&j is on my list of perfect sandwiches (again, for me, but I think it would fit such a description in general) because it provides a balance of sweet, savory, salty, acidic and allows nigh infinite variety with fruit flavors. You can have one and need nothing else to satisfy one’s palate.

I think where grape is better than strawberry for those that prefer it is the nature of grape. It is a fairly strong flavor, but also usually simpler in jelly or jam form. The processing of grapes in that way means the potential complexity of flavor grapes can have is subdued. As such, it delivers the balance to the peanut butter in a very accessible way. Remember, we often encounter pb&j sandwiches first in our youth when we haven’t developed our palate as much, and often can’t appreciate more subtle flavours or more complex ones.

Strawberry jams and preserves are almost always more complex in flavor than grape versions (though I’d argue that a good homemade muscadine jelly belies that). They’re also a tad more acidic, and strawberry flavor as it differs from other fruits is bolder as well. So it often stands over the peanut butter, even to the degree of smothering at times.

I believe that’s why, ignoring personal preferences, grape became the default and is “better” than strawberry as a default. I might also argue that apple jelly is better than grape as a default for the same reasons; the varieties of apple used combined with the jelly making process make it an incredible pb&j candidate.

I put way too much thought into sandwich theory. I admit that with joy in my heart lol.

But I have tried essentially every kind of jam and jelly that I’ve run into over the years on a pb&j, as well as adjacent options like apple butter. I maintain that the holy trinity of apple, grape and strawberry should be default. If you open a sandwich stand, one of those three should be what you serve if someone asks for a pb&j without specifying a flavor.

While I prefer apple as my personal default, I think that the hypothetical sandwich shop should likely default to grape as it is the assumption most people make when they ask for one, but I wouldn’t be mad at any of them as default.

Now, because I’m picky, strawberry is my third or fourth choice when I’m wanting one. Apple or grape is going to be what I reach for 80% of the time. Damson plum is roughly tied with strawberry for me, and I can never decide which I prefer.

What is straight out is any fruit like blackberry that has the seeds still in the jam or preserves (by definition, seeds can’t be present in jellies). It just isn’t pleasant to run into those hard bits (as opposed to something crunchy like crunchy pb, or some nice potato chips layered into the sandwich, though that’s not a pure pb&j), so they can fuck right off.

I am otherwise very open to fruits in that regard. Even oddball things like pepper jelly, or watermelon rind preserves are worthy on rare occasions. Watermelon rind preserves, btw, are exactly what you might think. The peeled and cut rind of a watermelon preserved by a combination of citrus (lemon), sugar, and heat. Pectin may be added to adjust the thickness as preferred. It is amazeballs, and can go with damn near anything that can handle the sweetness. If you’ve never had it, find an old southern granny or gramps and die happy after they share a jar with you.

Even things that don’t do well as preserves or jams can be given honorary place on a pb&j sandwich. Bruléed banana as an example. Little pinch of cinnamon, a sprinkle of sugar, bake for maybe ten minutes then brule to caramel. Lay that on the waiting pb&bread, then die happy. It isn’t a proper pb&J, but it’s a spiritual cousin to it.

Strawberry has been the default for PB&J in my family for decades. Glad the 1980s has finally caught up to you.

No one’s mentioned blackcurrant jam? The absolute best kind of jam for all purposes including PBJ

Never heard of grape jam or ‘jelly’ though. Strawberry or raspberry jam seems to be the most common round here in NZ, and it’s all okay but has nothing on blackcurrant

Natural peanut butter with actual maple syrup, on sourdough

Agreed. If grapes ain’t fermented, I got no use for 'em.

Coarse ground peanut butter but not crunchy, with a little salt and honey, plus blackberry or boysenberry preserves is the way. That or a fluffernutter.

Both of those are meh-tier options. You want seedless blackberry or orange marmalade.

Cream cheese and guava is better than peanut butter and anything. In fact, cream cheese and any jelly is better than peanut butter and any jelly.

Peanut butter (savory) by itself is ok in a sandwich, and it’s ok with honey. But not with jelly.

Split household of 4 here: Half grape, half strawberry.

unsweetened peanut butter with honey is better than both tho

M&Ms did a promotional thing for one of the transformers movies, it was “strawberried peanut butter” and it was fantastic.