Peanuts
The story about the Question
Jackson County, Florida
Shake them,and if they rattle, they aren't green.
GOOBER PEAS by A. Pindar
Found a peanut - found a peanut - found a peanut just now - it was rotten - it was rotten - it was rotten just now - eat it anyway - eat it anyway - eat it any way just now -
Subj: [FLJACKSO] Question about Peanuts
Date: 06/29/2000
From: cov@cyberia.com (Carol Covington)
Hi, I just purchased a half bushel of green peanuts and I need some information
on how you boil them ( or I should say how long )? Also how you roast them
in the shell with salt? If anyone can help me I would appreciate it. We just
purchased these while on vacation in FL and are now back up north.
Thanks,
Carol
Subj: Re: [FLJACKSO] Question about Peanuts
Date: 07/12/2000
From: mcgee2@bellsouth.net (Erin Alexandra McGee)
To: FLJACKSO-L@rootsweb.com
I know this thread seemed to have ended, but I was telling my dad about it
(he loves me telling him all the goings-on in his home county) and I found
out something new about boiled peanuts I thought you might like to know.
My dad used to eat them in Graceville, and he gave me this advice. Shake
them,and if they rattle, they aren't green. If you buy them again, shake
a good handful of them, and if they rattle, they're not them. I thought it
was an interesting test for the "real mc coy".
Erin McGee
Subj: Re: [FLJACKSO] Question about Peanuts
Date: 07/07/2000
From: rwats@mindspring.com (R. Watson)
Hi Carol,
Boiled Peanuts
4 pounds green peanuts, in their shell
6 quarts water
6 to 10 Tablespoons salt
Wash green peanuts and place in a large pot with water and salt. Cover and bring to a boil. Boil slowly for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Water should be briny. More water and salt may be added if necessary while cooking. Test for doneness after 1 1/2 hours. Peanuts should be soft, but not mushy inside. Rinse in plain (unsalted) water. Drain well.
Note: Green Peanuts are available from June until September. After cooling, they may be frozen in plaxtic bags. When ready to serve, simply reheat to a boil, and drain.
Now a story.
A few years ago my husband took a notion to boil some peanuts and started
searching through my volumes and volumes of cookbooks including the annual
recipes from Southern Living and couldn't find the first recipe for boiling
peanuts and commented that if in all those cookbooks nobody could put a recipe
for boiling peanuts I didn't need to spend anymore money on cookbooks. I
wrote to Southern Living and they sent the above recipe taken from Savannah
Style A Bookbook by the Junior League of Savannah, Inc. and they promised
to pass along the request for a feature on peanuts but to date they've not
done one YET - Can't imagine why - Almost 21 years of Southern Living Magazine
without featuring the peanut - a southern mainstay - go figure. Enjoy!!
P.S. Roasted Peanuts - the peanuts must be dried before roasted and I don't
have directions for that but I'm sure someone from the list will send them
to you.
Rhonda Watson
Subj: RE: [FLJACKSO] Question about Peanuts
Date: 06/29/2000
From: melonbel@bellucci.com (NB as Melonbel)
Sittin up here in New Hampshire with my mouth waterin just thinking about
boiled peanuts!! I have never roasted them since I think it's a sin and a
shame to waste good green peanuts by puttin them in the oven! But I can tell
you how to boil them. It's not an exact science...Put your peanuts in a big
pot and cover them with water. Add salt...a LOT of it. Boil until they are
just soft (the nuts, not the shells!)...this takes several tastings along
the way to figure out if they are soft enough yet. When they are the right
texture (right meaning the way YOU like them), take them off the heat and
let them soak. Again...many tastings needed to find when they are "ready".
Be sure to refrigerate what's not eaten right away so they don't spoil!
Enjoy...I'm green with envy!! Light and Love...
Nancy B
Subj: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 06/29/2000
From: SGVICK@aol.com
I don't usually write about food. But boiled peanuts are in a category beyond food. During my 30 years of exile in the North, I gorged on boiled peanuts every time I made it home to visit my parents or my wife's parents. I knew just the places in Alabama and Georgia to stock up on the trip back. My mother, knowing where a person's weaknesses where and not reluctant to attack them, always boiled up a pot or two when I visited. My work colleagues up North heard me rave about boiled peanuts so much that they all longed to try them. So, finally I returned with a fresh batch of green peanuts and boiled them up to take to the office. Huge crowds gathered round to taste what they expected to be the best food ever known to man. To a man and woman, they hated them. I guess it's not a Yankee thing.
When my parole came through and I was permitted to return to Florida, I ate
so many boiled peanuts that I soon needed a new wardrobe. Eventually, I had
to give them up. Those babies have a lot of calories in them. Still, they
are on my list for my last meal.
Duke Vickrey
Subj: Re: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 06/30/2000 10:59:00
From: cgdean@bellsouth.net (cynthia dean)
I guess it has something to do with what you are brought up eating. I don't
remember ever having boiled peanuts growing up in Pensacola. We always parched
'em. My first sample was while visiting relatives in Tallahassee where all
they seemed to have everywhere were boiled peanuts. I thought they were slimey
and didn't care for them at all. After hearing you all rave, maybe I'll try
them again in my old age next time I go east.
Cynthia
Subj: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 06/30/2000
From: cov@cyberia.com (Carol Covington)
Hi Everybody,
I want to thank everyone who responed to my question about Boiled Peanuts.
I recieved alot of good information on how to go about Boiling Peanuts. If
anyone has any good recipes for using boiled peanuts I would be interested
in that also.
Thanks again,
Carol, in PA
Subj: Re: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 06/30/2000
From: mcgee2@bellsouth.net (Erin Alexandra McGee)
In response to the boiled peanuts in Pensacola, I've lived in Pensacola almost 22 years now (my whole life) and I was raised on boiled peanuts!
I remember being barely old enough to toddle but when my daddy brought out that wonderful bag of (pronounced like bolt in my house) boiled peanuts I was right up in there with my mouth open and my Bambi eyes pleading for "just one more daddy!" He shelled them for me, and I probably ate more than he and my older sister combined. I can find them all over now, from the flea market in Gulf Breeze to the roadside booths. My sister-in-law gets some great green peanuts from Jay, Florida as well! If any of you got ahold of the Pensacola News Journal awhile ago there was a letter to the editor about the way this man made fun of the way we talk and eat those wonderful nuts, and the writer had to write and tell that mean man just where he could go (back up to NY) and leave his bolt peanuts behind (the writer of this letter was my brother.) Long live the Boiled Peanut!
Subj: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 07/02/2000
From: cov@cyberia.com (Carol Covington)
Hi Everyone, I just wanted to thank everyone for all of their help with directions on how to cook and store my Boiled peanuts. We boiled them yesterday and they turned out great. We had a few Pennsylvania friends over last evening. We all sat around a camp fire, roasted hotdogs and ate our Boiled Peanuts. All of our friends were impressed. They had never had them before and they really liked them. They said that we should do this atleast once every summer. They really enjoyed it. I recommended to them that they should all drive down south sometime and enjoy some of the culture and foods from our southern neighbors.
Thanks again and have a nice summer. Also, I'm sorry for getting of the geneology
alittle here. But I felt that sometimes cultural foods are also apart of
our history and pasts and it can be fun and interesting to find out about
foods that our ancestors may have eaten also.
Thanks again,
Carol
Subj: [FLJACKSO] boiled peanuts : )
Date: 07/02/2000
From: Vabo@aol.com
My husband is from Jackson Co., FL and boils the BEST peanuts in the South! He likes them less salty than the ones you usually buy and he has a special trick of draining them out of the salty water while they are still very hot and spreading them out on newspaper so they steam dry. Some years ago he was working with farmers who had a huge peanut crop they could not sell. He suggested to a trucker that on his next trip to Harlem he add a few bushel of green peanuts for the fresh produce venders. At first they did not know what to do with them but after a few trips the venders were begging for more green peanuts -- they were selling like hotcakes! My husband knew that with all of those former Southerners in Harlem it would not be long before the word would be out where they could get green peanuts! They freeze very well and will keep a year or more so don't ever throw any out!
Subj: [FLJACKSO] For Carol--peanuts
Date: 07/02/2000
From: Vabo@aol.com
You never use boiled peanuts in recipes! You them eat and enjoy them!
Subj: Re: [FLJACKSO] Boiled Peanuts
Date: 07/02/2000
From: rw@pone.com (Richard White)
Well... If you want to go to the "roots" of the thing, peanuts (aka "goobers",
"pindars" or "ground peas") are an African food. "Goober" is from a word
from Africa, "nguba".
RW