pointless hot Saturday afternoon post

here's another little peek into what makes me love the South...there is not a road side produce stand worth a good god damn anywhere in this area during the summer that doesn't boil its own p-nuts...slow cooked in a big pot over a burner for hours and hours...there is a secret to getting the brine just right that only gets passed down in certain families - like barbeque recipes....and really, some secrets are okay....as long as it leads to the perfect boiled p-nut I'm alright with it...

when I was a kid, we enjoyed p-nuts of all shapes and sizes....they were versatile...you could put the dry roasted ones in a coke, we'd get the shelled ones at the circus, there were the fancy kinda greasy ones with their husks on at special events, but nothing was as big a treat to me as going to the State House on a Sunday afternoon and getting a bag of boiled Cromers P-Nuts from the wandering p-nut man...

see...it was a big day out to go feed the pigeons and squirrels that lived in the trees and on the grounds around the State House...we'd buy a bag of roasted p-nuts for them and a bag of boiled for us...when the bags were gone, we'd wander around look at the statues and try to find all the stars marking the places where Sherman's cannons fired on the capitol from across the river and chipped pieces of the granite off...

anyway...when I was a teenager, there was a guy who always boiled p-nuts when he'd have a keg party, and truly that is the most perfect combination in the world...beer and boiled p-nuts...I cannot resist those places on the side of the road that have those spray painted signs on used plywood sheets advertising their boiled p-nuts $1.00 a scoop...

I know a lot of people are grossed out by them...J with her Holy City of the (New) South roots...will not touch them...she says it's a texture thing....but, really that's just as well cause I can eat a whole bag by myself....