Boiled Peanuts

So, everytime I move I learn a different cuisine. I may still be in the same country, but the food preferences change. Southerners like sweet tea (and by sweet I mean VERY sweet). They like fried chicken and greens. I found out something else they like - boiled peanuts. Kenyon and I saw signs all over the road advertising places where one can buy boiled peanuts. Kenyon said, "what's a boiled peanut? That doesn't even sound good." I didn't know what it was.

My friend Sarah here said her family once took a road trip and stopped to ask. Her dad got out and asked the man, "What's a boiled peanut?" The man replied in a heavy southern drawl, "A boiled peanut is a boiled peanut." Well, duh!

This weekend I tried my first (and likely my last) boiled peanut. We were at the Woolly Worm festival - more about that later - and Lori got very excited and said, "ah, boiled peanuts! Have you ever had one?" No. She bought a cup full. They really are peanuts, like the kind you eat at a baseball game. They take salt water and boil it, then they dump salty peanuts in to the salt water and let them soften. You open the shell and eat the salty, soft peanut. Some people love them. I am not one of those people. One peanut and I felt like all the moisture in my mouth was sucked right out from all the salt. So, if you've never heard of a boiled peanut...now you don't have to ask.