This month has several interesting things going for it, including National Pig Day and National Wedding Planning Day, both of which happened last Saturday. I know that even the simplest wedding requires more than one day of planning, so a few days’ late start won’t make much difference. As for National Pig Day, some suggestions for observing the day include cuddling with one, reading about one – and eating one. I doubt if any pig would mind if any of those things occurred a bit late.
In France, the family pig was once referred to as ‘the gentleman who pays the rent’ because pigs foraged for food in harvested fields and woodlands, ate the kitchen waste and could be sold to the local butcher or processed at home to furnish meat, lard and hides for the family. Today, it’s doubtful that the value of that pig would cover the rent, but that’s inflation for you. March 1st was also National Peanut Butter Day, but I found several other dates throughout the year dedicated to peanuts and peanut butter – even one specifically for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Peanuts have been around as food, and even as an ingredient for intoxicating beverages, for at least 3,500 years. Believed to have originated in Brazil and Peru, peanuts were apparently a staple of the Inca diet as well as in other areas of South America. Archaeologists have found peanut-shaped pottery jars filled with peanuts in graves to serve as food in the afterlife.
By the time the Spanish were exploring in the New World, peanuts were being grown as far north as Mexico, and were subsequently introduced, by the Spanish explorers, to European countries. They were particularly suited to growing conditions in Spain and there are still certain varieties known exclusively as Spanish peanuts. From there, traders took the peanut to Africa and Asia. Interestingly, the peanut was believed, by many in Africa, to be one of several common plants possessing a soul.
When Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves, some of their traditional foods came with them, including peanuts, then known as groundnuts or ground peas. They were used mainly as a source of oil and food for animals and the poor. Peanuts were not grown in any great amounts for food until machines were invented to do most of the intensive work necessary to their cultivation.
Peanuts grew well in the soil and climate of the American South, but like cotton, could only be grown profitably when slave labor was available. After the Civil War, planters accustomed to cheap labor had to find new methods of production. As the Machine Age produced labor-saving machinery such as the cotton gin and equipment for harvesting crops that had previously been harvested by hand, peanuts became a popular crop in the South and a broader market was needed.
George Washington Carver, educated at Iowa State College in Ames, became an agriculture research scientist and established labs in Alabama where he developed ways to utilize new plants as well as the familiar peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes.
Eventually, he was responsible for over three hundred uses for peanuts, providing new jobs and new markets for the crop. A list of the products includes such familiar things as paste, flour, insulation, shaving cream and hand lotion.
Commercially made peanut butter has been available since the late 1800’s and was made at home for untold years before that. It takes an average of 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter. John Harvey Kellogg, who developed ready-to-eat cereals, introduced ready-made peanut butter to the American market in 1895, as a source of protein for persons who needed an alternative to meat. Its forerunner, ground peanuts called peanut paste, first marketed in 1884, by M. G. Edson of Canada, lacked the stabilizing agent, sweetener, salt and emulsifying agent used in making peanut butter. Peanut butter is not only a popular food, it is also inexpensive, nutritious and versatile. It has a long shelf life and can be kept without refrigeration for up to three months after opening. Peanut butter makes delicious sandwiches paired with sweet, sour or salty ingredients such as jelly, honey, olives, pickles or even a layer of potato chips for crunch, a la Janet Evanovich’s fictional Stephanie Plum.
Surprise – China, not U.S. uses the most peanut butter of any country in the world.