I’m not sure how or why grape became the default. For the longest time, I thought I didn’t like PB&J. But ever since trying it with strawberry instead, I understood the appeal. It’s so much better, and now I find it weird that the combination isn’t more common.
Yes, I’m a European who’s been enlightened about PB&J by my Canadian partner but I too much prefer it with Raspberry jam. Or what we call “fruits of the forest”, also red fruits.
I tried it with an apricot/passion fruit one the other day and it was surprisingly nice. We don’t really have grape jam here afaik.
Our PB is also a bit different though, it’s literally just crushed peanuts (100% ingredient).
There’s a bulk food store near me that has a grinder/hopper for the freshest ground peanuts you can get (also pretty cheap), I definitely prefer that style and wish at least some of the store options here were more like that. Skippy for instance is fine for what it is, but it’s honestly closer to some sort of frosting than peanut butter. The term ‘peanut’ is doing heavy lifting in the name.
Apricots on PB&J sounds wonderful, I’m particularly fond of pear slices when apricot jam is used. Haven’t actually tried apricot slices yet though.