Peanuts

I’m not from the South, and so I can’t call myself a Southerner like Holly can, but I did spend 6 years in Georgia.  There are lots of things about it which I miss: winters which are more like a Minnesota fall, the almost disgustingly friendly people (OK, there was that one time that I was chased by a guy with an SKS assault rifle — but that was an exception — generally Southerners are the nicest people you could ever want to meet), and, especially, the food.  I love okra, I love grits, I love country fried steak, I love mustard greens, collard greens, fried catfish, sweet tea (which is starting to become popular here) etc. And for those of you thinking well shoot, you can get that at your nearest Cracker Barrel (which I frequent) — IT JUST ISN’T THE SAME.  One of the foods which I miss the most though — one that hasn’t found its way to Minnesota yet — is the boiled peanut.  For those of you who don’t know what a boiled peanut is, it’s a little piece of heaven that has been boiled in a tub of hot salt water for a long time so that, when you break open the peanut’s shell, now the texture of watery cardboard, the seeds inside are soft, warm and, you guessed it, salty.  So, why am I telling you this?  Because I can’t suppress my excitement any longer.  Tom Michaels. a good friend of mine who is a transplant from a Canadian University where he worked on bean breeding, and I recently were talking about boiled peanuts and he told me that he has a peanut variety which will grow here in Minnesota without too much trouble and which is can be used to make hot boiled peanuts.  So I’m in the process of finding excuses to plant this critter — I’m going to plant it between rows of trees, in grass plots, in vegetable gardens — and then I’m gonna harvest them all and make hot boiled peanuts through the entire winter next year!

7 thoughts on “Peanuts”

  1. Your just trying to put nitrogen back into the soil. Of course you want to put them between trees and in grass plots–they’re heavy consumers of nitrogen and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to put them in the veggie garden. You’re just being a thoughtful steward of the earth. 😉

  2. They also eat boiled peanuts in China so check out any local Asian markets for green peanuts. Asian markets might be scarce in Minnesota though.

  3. It’s the simple things in life that make it worth living.
    I make boiled peanuts – locally grown I might add, quite often – they are just lovely.

  4. When I go home to visit, I come back with boiled peanuts from Georgia and fireworks from South Carolina. I do grow my own collards and okra here. Thanks, Jeff, for listing/torturing me with the entire menu from Weaver D’s – I’d give my right arm for a meat and three at this moment. Mmmmm.

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