This food holiday on January 24 celebrates a pantry staple in many homes. Used as a spread, a cooking ingredient, a condiment, or stand-alone snack, peanut butter was patented by Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Canada in 1884. Edson (not Edison) figured out that if he ground peanuts in a heated mill he could produce a delicious paste. His intent was to use it to flavor candy, but the realm of applications for his invention have been widespread, so to speak.