the song take me out to the ball game which was surprisingly enough written by
two people who had never attended a baseball game includes the line buy me
some peanuts and cracker jack I don't care if I ever get back written in 1909
as peanuts were becoming more and more popular in the United States the snack
had already become inextricably linked to America's pastime it's hard to
imagine that there was life before the peanut butter and jelly sandwich but
there was in the way that the humble peanut took over both our hearts and our
cuisine is history that deserves to be remembered peanuts which are classified
as a legume by botanist but typically a nut by chefs and nutritionists are a
billion-dollar industry in the United States u.s. peanut production was valued
at approximately 1.13 billion US dollars in 2019 a 2019 survey found that nearly
90% of responders eat peanut butter regularly the peanut institute which
bills itself as a nonprofit organization supporting nutrition research and
developing educational programs to encourage healthful life styles that
include peanuts and peanut products claims that peanuts compose nearly
two-thirds of the world's nut consumption globally in 2018 over 42
million metric tons of peanuts were consumed almost four times as many as
the second-leading nut the almond being rich in protein and unsaturated fats
they're naturally cholesterol free and contain many nutrients including
magnesium vitamin E and niacin which is a particular interest to those who may
be at risk of Alzheimer's disease as a diet high in niacin can lower the risk
of developing the disease by up to 70% and just as the peanut is beneficial to
humans the plant itself has several beneficial characteristics for the earth
it is a low growing plant with vine like spread that canopies the soil conserving
water in hot climates furthermore the root system can grow more than six feet
into the ground reaching deeper moisture and it's at root system with its root
nodules and their symbiotic relationship with bacteria that replenishes the
nitrogen in the soil helping farmers to use fewer fertilizers so where did this
humble legume originate and when did people start cultivating peanuts we
don't know for sure but we do have some clues the genus
to which the peanut belongs is endemic to South America with the oldest wild
species occurring in a few locations in Bolivia and Argentina the oldest
archaeological remains of an early modern peanut were found in Peru where
about 76 hundred years old while the climate in Peru was start enough to
preserve the remains it's likely they started in a more moist environment
through hybridization and artificial selection the modern species a hypogea
emerged from larger pods and bushier plants hypogea is Latin for under the
earth describing their unusual technique of burying their own seeds in this
process called geocarpy the pollinated ovaries form a peg which grows into the
soil developing the seeds underground because of this they are
known as ground nuts although still technically a legume and were well
established in South America when the conquistadors arrived in the late 15th
century these explorers brought the peanut back to Europe with them the hard
outer shell and long shelf life made peanuts highly suitable for marine
voyages peanuts spread to Asia and Africa through European trade and made
their way to North America during the slave trade in the 1700s in the 18th and
19th century peanuts were considered livestock feed and a southern poor man's
crop and the harvesting and processing techniques were labor-intensive during
harvest the plants and pods were picked and then turned over and left to dry for
a few days and then collected and separated the most important region
during this time was around Cape Fear, North Carolina there the price of
peanuts was recorded in newspaper starting in the 1830s and they were
being sold on the streets in the 1850s still peanuts were not widely cultivated
in the u.s. prior to the Civil War food shortages in the agrarian south where
both civilians and confederate troops were cut off from supply turned the food crop
previously generally seen as food for livestock and only the lowest social
classes to a staple food whose protein content staved off malnutrition an April
2012 article in Smithsonian magazine notes that peanuts were used as a
substitute for scarce food items during the Civil War including an ersatz coffee
made from ground peanuts mixed with milk and sugar the folk song eating goober
peas which has been recorded by musicians such as Johnny Cash, Burl Ives
and the Kingston Trio is referring to peanuts then called goobers written by
Confederate soldiers the third verse says just before the battle the general
hears a row he says the Yanks are coming I hear their rifles now he turns
around to wonder and what do you think he sees the 15th Alabama eating goober
peas when the song was first published as sheet music in 1866 the publisher
cheekily listed the composer as "P-Nutt" later in the 19th century PT Barnum is
credited with extensive national spread with his use of traveling circus cars
advertising hot roasted peanuts Street sales from vendors of roasted peanuts
became the norm in large cities like New York Cincinnati and San Francisco
in 1897 peanuts began to be sold from coin-operated bending machines in train
stations in New York this became so popular that by 1926 there was a vending
machine for every 100 people in America and they generated a million dollars per
day as peanuts popularity was growing in the United States three important things
happened to make peanuts more available first the machinery for harvesting and
processing peanuts improved secondly farmers figured out about crop rotation
and finally the boll weevil attacked the cotton crop cotton depletes the
nutrients in soil after a few years of cotton in the fields farmers had lower
yielding crops and struggled to feed their families or livestock especially
when boll weevils wreaked havoc this is the part that many Americans already
know George Washington Carver was known as a father of the peanut industry
because he convinced southern cotton farmers to plant sweet potatoes and
legumes including peanuts not only for their ability to fix nitrogen depleted
soil but also because if they couldn't sell a crop unlike cotton they could at
least eat it and feed their animals the plants by 1920 the peanut industry was
modernized with mechanical means of planting digging and picking along with
a shift from unreliable hand processing to uniformity in large factories the
shift increases supply lowering prices and making quality peanuts available to
the masses which brings us to the really important stuff at least for we 90
percent of Americans who claim to eat the stuff regularly peanut butter many
people have been credited with the invention of peanut butter but the fact
is that the origins are so unclear and so many seem to have come up with the
idea around the same time that no one really knows who should get the credit
but the idea was thrown around for many years before the stuff became
particularly popular the first u.s. patent for a peanut butter substance was
granted to Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Canada in 1884 the patent for the
manufacturer of peanut candy describes the process to create a peanut paste
with the consistency of butter to which sugar was added for hardness perhaps
even prior to this one historian of the early 20th century claims that a woman
named Rose Davis in New York smeared a paste made of peanuts on bread in the
1840s after her son traveled to Cuba and saw women there doing the same thing
purportedly an unnamed physician in st. Louis was creating peanut butter in 1890 for
his elderly patients and shared the recipe with George Bale a food
processing plant owner who went on to sell nut butter from barrels as a snack
food in 1894 Bale also adapted a meat grinder to simplify the process of
grinding the peanuts but most famously in 1895 dr. John Harvey Kellogg of
breakfast cereal fame patented a process creating peanut butter from raw not
roasted peanuts a vegetarian and well health nut he marked it as a nutritious
protein substitute for those at his sanitarium who could not sufficiently
chew their food his patent from September of 1896 was for a food
compound consisting of starch emulsified vegetable oil and a crushed butter or
paste made from boiled nuts preferably peanuts interestingly as the peanut
paste was initially created by hand using a mortar and pestle or meat
grinder it was expensive and not widely available in fact unlike peanuts which
originally a street food or a circus snack for the unsophisticated crowds
peanut butter was a delicacy and served in tea shops and at fancy affairs but as
machinery was evolving for growing and processing peanuts so were the grinders
for peanut butter Joseph Lambert an employee of Kellogg at his sanitarium
marketed a hand-operated peanut butter grinder in 1896 and in st. Louis in 1903
dr. Ambrose Straub patented a peanut butter making machine
as dairy butters have been spread on bread for many centuries likely
since the Middle Ages it was a logical choice to call the substance peanut
butter the first mention of a peanut butter sandwich in print was from the May
issue of Good Housekeeping in 1896 the Philadelphia press recommended mixing
peanut butter with a cream cheese the next year which if you haven't tried it
is amazing on waffles and so the peanut butter sandwich took over the nation
before the end of the 19th century as for our beloved PB&J the first peanut
butter and jelly reference in print was by Julia Davis Chandler who wrote for
the Boston cooking school magazine of culinary science and domestic economics
in 1901 it was still a tea sandwich though being described as three very
thin layers of bread and two layers of filling one a peanut paste and currant
our crab apple jelly for the other but the all-american peanut butter and jelly
sandwich really became popular after soldiers from World War one returned
after having eaten grapealade, a grape jam produced by Welch's and when sliced
bread became the norm in the 1920s as for being a children's staple the jam
added sweetness and the sliced bread made it simple for children to make
themselves both peanut butter and jelly were on the rations list for world war
ii soldiers sales for both soared after the war now about 50% of peanuts in the
United States are consumed as peanut butter the other half is split between
snack nuts and candy or confections the similar sandwich with substitutes
marshmallow cream for the jelly is called a fluffernutter and is the
official state sandwich of massachusetts many of the early peanut and peanut
butter candies are still eaten today including Cracker Jack created in 1893
Clarke bar created in 1917 oh Henry created in 1920 and the cult
following Reese's Peanut Butter Cup created in 1928
Snickers was created in 1930 and pay day and in nineteen thirty-two and while peanuts
and peanut butter are vastly popular in 2017 the American College of Allergy
Asthma and Immunology reported a 21% increase in childhood allergies to
peanuts over 2010 statistics researchers through groundbreaking research have
determined that introducing peanuts to infants decreases the risk by a whopping
86% pediatricians now understand that early safe introduction is important
with powdered peanut butter being easy to incorporate into baby foods
there are even infant safe peanut puffs the american peanut industry funds some
of the research through the national peanut board
having invested more than 25 million dollars for its research and education
about food and peanut allergies and while it's easy to find time to snack on
peanuts keep in mind that September 13th is national peanut day January 24th is
national peanut butter day April 2nd is national peanut butter and jelly day and
November is national peanut butter lovers month and peanuts are more than a
snack the protein dense food has proven particularly effective in treating
malnutrition in children an April 2017 edition of the Belleville news Democrat
quotes dr. Patricia Wolfe, executive director of a nonprofit called meds and
food for kids that a peanut based therapeutic food that she says tastes
like the candy Reese's Pieces has such a dramatic effect on malnutrition in
children that quote it seems miraculous she credits the recipe which was created
by a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at Washington
University in Saint Louis as having saved the lives of more than 260,000
children quite a legacy for a groundnut