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The Pike County Extension Office is partnering with the Brundidge Historical Society to host a “virtual” Peanut Butter Recipe Contest. The contest is part of the Annual Peanut Butter Festival in Brundidge, however, due to COVID-19 guidelines, the contest rules will look a little different this year.

Rather than enter a prepared recipe, peanut butter lovers are invited to submit their favorite recipes with peanut butter as an ingredient to the Pike County Extension Office. The recipe can be emailed to Abby Peters at aep0067@aces.edu or mailed to the Pike County Extension Office at 306 S 3 Notch Street, Troy, AL 36081.

Judges for the Peanut Butter Recipe Contest will be judged by Extension agents and three winning recipes will be determined. The recipes will be printed in The Messenger and prizes will be awarded.

The deadline for entry is Thursday, October 28. Winners will be announced in the Weekend Edition of The Messenger.

Lawrence Bowden, BHS president, expressed appreciation to Peters and Pike County Extension Office for heading up the 2020 Peanut Butter Recipe contest

“The Pike County Extension Office has been and continues to be a supporter of our annual harvest and heritage celebration,” Bowden said. “Their support makes it possible to continue with tradition even with COVID-19 restrictions. The 2020 Peanut Butter Recipe Contest is just that, a ‘recipe’ contest. You don’t have to bake or make anything, just enter your favorite recipe that contains America’s favorite foodstuff.”

Randy Ross, first BHS president, said Brundidge has been peanut butter proud for nearly 100 years. The small South Alabama town had two of the earliest peanut butter mills in the Southeast.

J.D Johnston opened Johnston’s Peanut Butter Mill in the late 1920 and the Johnson brothers, Grady and Oscar opened the Louis-Anne Peanut Butter Mill opened soon after.

The BHS hosted the first Peanut Butter Festival in 1991 with a budget of $46 earned from the Bass House Quilt Show, also a first, Ross said.

“We didn’t have much money but we had a lot of ideas and were dumb enough to try them,” he said, laughing.

“From the beginning, the Peanut Butter Recipe Contest was a main festival event. It was co-sponsored by the Pike County Extension Office with the late Dena Barnes heading it up at the historic Johnston Mill.  We had more recipes than we had room for. The winners were Dixie Shehane, Margaret Ross and Mernette Bray.”

From that festival day forward, the Peanut Butter Recipe Contest has been a staple of the annual harvest and heritage celebration.   Now, 29 years later and in the midst of a pandemic, the BHS and Pike County Extension are sticking together with the staple that sustained the town of Brundidge during the Great Depression by providing jobs and an affordable source of protein for its people.