My daughter in love went shopping for vegetables yesterday and saw freshly arrived ground nuts, called peanuts by the Americans, and knowing my weakness for it, bought a pile of it.
I got it steamed in a pressure cooker and sat down to shell them.
That is when nostalgia kicked in taking me back to my childhood when my mother used to ask the four of us siblings to shell the nuts. We used to call that a picnic as, while shelling for storage, we used to keep popping some as we went along. I did not pop any while I shelled because I am still recovering from a tooth extraction but, am looking forward to doing so soon enough from the shelled and refrigerated stock.
Apart from the picnic nostalgia another memory of a late friend kept coming up. That of VB, a dear friend who used to get the snacks for our parties. He used to specially get these boiled groundnuts for me and inevitably say, “Nuts for a nut from a nut!” It has been a long time since I remembered him.
Here is a stock photograph from Alamy showing Indian village children having a picnic like we used to have in our childhood.
How do you like your ground/peanuts?
It’s been some time since I saw peanuts in the shell – most seem to come ready to eat – although you can get just shelled ones with skin on if you want.
I can’t eat nuts nowadays…
Sad that you can’t eat them.
I eat them every day. dry roasted and Un salted!
and I like peanut butter and all things peanut.
peanut butter is especially good whether on toast or on a sliced apple!
(and… what a dear memory of your friend.)
In retrospect, I should have mentioned you and your blog. But of course, you are fond of peanuts.
My Malaysian ex has similar remembrances of steamed peanuts. I could never quite understand the attraction because I’ve only ever had them roasted.
By having a repeated phrase, your friend made sure you remembered him
Give it a try. Add some salt and a little turmeric powder to the water add the peanuts, boil, cool down, shell and eat. Pure bliss. That friend was special for more that just being the snack supplier for our parties. We had many adventures together and he died too young.
I’ve never seen peanuts in a shell but I have seen most other kinds of nuts in shells — the kind you eat and the human variety.
Ah, the human variety. So nicely brought to life by my late friend in the post.