Trail Mix: Pegging Peanuts

Hey, plant lovers and plant killers. I'm Jonathan.

And I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current geriatric millennials.

This is Plant Sluts, the podcast where plants meet pop culture, sex, gossip, and

all the dirt in between.

Coming to you from a backyard in

Salem, Oregon, and a rooftop in Montreal,

Quebec, where plant Sluts.

We're plant Sluts.

Oh, my God.

Hey, Sluts. Welcome to the second episode of our Trail Mix series.

Over the next few episodes, we'll be digging into that mixed bag that makes up insufferable healthy people's favorite junk food.

And today, we're opening up a can of peanuts.

But first, let's share our garden status updates. Jonathan, what is your garden up to?

I actually just came from the greenhouse. It's really hot up there.

There.

I have now things kind of popping up. I have onion seedlings. I have peas growing and a bunch of different lettuces. Other than that, just seeds in some potting mix and waiting for them to come up.

It's all starting.

Yeah, I can't wait.

I saw something pop up today, and it was a bulb. And I was like, oh, I didn't plant bulbs in this, like, planter that I had lettuces in. And then I remembered it's probably garlic. How do people keep track of what they plant where? Just kidding. Don't tell me how.

Labels. Jeanette, I'm gonna send you a pack of labels for your. For your birthday.

I just started a lot of my seeds, and it took me a long time to do it because I was kind of stressing myself over the perfect way to start them and arrange them. On the little heated tea cart thing from the 60s. I talked about that. I have, and I went and looked today, and the labels I made, I put paper stickers where I wrote what it was so I could reuse the labels. And it is all melted off. Melted off the ink spread because it got wet.

Oh, yeah.

I'll have to, like, peel those off and write it in Sharpie, so it's already a mess. And I realized last night as I was planting everything, I added water, and the seed starter mix was very hydrophobic. I looked it up. You're supposed to mix it thoroughly, like, into a paste first. So I just want to throw everything out and start over because I. I won't be able to dig out each little seed. So I. I did just, like, mix it with, like, a toothpick, but I just feel like, oh, my God, I finally did it. I had it all ready. All Organized, color coded. I sit to do it for, like, you know, a couple hours, and then it's just like. Like, the labels suck, the soil's wrong. I'm probably starting a house fire right now upstairs with that tea cart, heating the soil. But that's not even my status update. I came back from three days away, and I go to look at my little lemon tree that I brought indoors. It's only like a foot and a half or two feet tall. I have it in the kitchen with all my houseplants by a bright window with an extra light on it. It had started flowering, so I went to look because I was going to try to hand pollinate it, and there was webbing and crawling bugs, which turned out to be mealy bugs all over it. And I just, like, had just gone home, had it unpacked, and was just, like, freaking out. I took it outside and wiped it down, every leaf down with alcohol and one of the plants around it, my little struggle pot. I also took that out and wiped it all down. But. But I just feel like in a couple weeks or days or whatever, I'm just gonna see that entire corner with all my houseplants covered in mealybugs, and I think I will then just burn everything down.

Burn it down. Maybe that cart does need to start a fire. It's the only way.

Oh, yeah, There we go.

So now we have a new segment, plant placements. We are going to read our trail mix charts. Tell me more about this, Jeanette.

Yes.

Obviously, this. This came from you. It's a very Jeanette thing.

Well, so I got the idea listening to 2 Broke Gays podcast. One of the hosts had the other person say their sun, moon, and rising sign based on, like, Lord of the Ring characters or something. And I was like, oh, I want to try that, but with plants. And so we're gonna have a category for this segment, and then we have to decide what our sun sign would be, our moon sign and our rising sign, and kind of explain why. So I'll explain real quick. What is your sun, moon and rising, and what's the difference? Your sun sign is like your core identity. It was. It's how you might describe yourself or big themes in your personality. And then your moon sign should represent, like, your emotional inner world, your feelings, instincts. And then your rising sign is kind of the first impression people get of you. Maybe your outer vibe and personality or maybe like your esthetic.

So your son is who you are at the core, and your moon is basically your more feeling and emotions, emotional Side and your rising is how you come across to others. Like what's under the armor kind of thing.

Yes. Today we're going to try it with things that are in trail mix. So whatever you can think of that's in trail mix, you can choose one to be your sun sign, your moon sign and your rising sign. I gave you a little heads up to give you some time to kind of think about this. So what did you come up with?

The first is the sun sign, which is who I am at the core. And if I were to choose an ingredient and trail mix, I think I'd have to go with cashew.

Interesting. Cashew.

I feel like cashew is like the smooth operator. Like, that's not how the song goes, but it's kind of like a bit melty and soft. It's. It's charming. You can use it in a lot of different things. It's like you can use it to even make vegan cheese, cheesecakes. It could be used in sweet things as well as in savory things. I think in, in South Asian cuisine, it's. It's often used and it's kind of fancy. Right. But yeah, it's also kind of gives you, like, a chill vibe. It has a bit of, like, an expensive taste.

Aren't cashews, like, hand picked and, like, hand harvested? Yes, they are super expensive, but that's all secret. Like, we don't know this until much later. How much work has to go into it?

Well, actually, it's funny that you say that because I did work on a cashew project in Vietnam when I worked with wwf.

Oh, wow.

I had a cashew farmer come in like, crack cashews in front of the prince consort of Denmark.

What was your job?

Well, it's because it was a project that was funded by the Danish Cooperation Organization, so the Danish International Development Agency. And I don't know, like. So the prince consort of Denmark was born in Vietnam. He was actually French. So that's why he's a prince consort, because he, he married into the royal family. He's actually passed away, but so I was working communications. So basically my job was behind the scenes to kind of set up this press moment, you know? Yeah, sorry, that was an aside, but

no, that's such, like, interesting and sounds like you're telling a story from a different life.

It feels like a different life. To be honest, I was like 25 at the time. I didn't know very much about life. But apparently cashews are also really toxic. Yeah, the outer shell which is what you. The first thing kind of you break open. It's very corrosive and the fruit is really corrosive as well. So it. You kind of have to handle it carefully, which is also how. It's how I would. How I would tell somebody that I'm dating if they were like, what do I need to know about you in order to. I'd be like, handle me carefully, please. I am a very sensitive person.

Or I will burn your fucking hands.

Oh, my God. Arrival. Yes, exactly. Wow. Okay.

Do you want me to say my son or do you want to just go through all three?

I want to know what your son would be.

Yeah, I chose peanut for my son.

Okay.

It's very like comfortable, practical, dependable. Kind of has the vibe of like you have your or I have my life together, even though they don't. Tries to be like the responsible choice, but is also in highly addictive Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Hell yeah. I think I do seem like I'm steady going and straightforward on that. Maybe outer and my main personality before you get to maybe the. The quirks.

Well. And you know, peanuts are one of the only legumes that once they are pollinated, they actually send the flower into the ground to develop the peanut under this in the soil.

Don't give too much away because it sounds very exciting, but it also kind

of sounds a bit like you, like you kind of want to be under the radar a little bit. Like you don't want to be all out there, you know, exposed. Maybe you feel like exposed. Maybe you have a bit of social anxiety. Jeanette.

Oh, my God. We were talking about this before. Okay. Before we start recording. What's your moon sign? What did you choose for your moon sign?

You're trying to change it, right? Move along.

Yeah.

This is to describe my feelings and my emotional side. Right. I don't know if this is really part of your trail mix, but there is like a party mix that sometimes has these little round discs of pumpernickel. So I would say I have a pumpernickel crunch moon. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I've heard the word.

It's like the dark, dark bread. So it's. It's quite. It's like a molasses colored bread. Right?

Oh, my God. I know exactly what you're talking about.

You know the things I'm talking about?

Yeah, those little crunchy. Yes.

Oh, my God, those are so amazing. I know. Like, if only I could have a mix and you don't Find them other than in those mixes. Right. Like, if you could only have like a bag of just those, like, I would be so happy.

Yeah.

There's something that you can't really stop eating. Or at least I can't stop eating. They're salty.

You're salty.

It's true.

And you're a little crunchy, like your homemade mouthwash.

Yeah. If I were to reflect on. In terms of feelings and emotions, maybe I have a hard time not feeling my emotions. Like, I'm very emotional in that it's kind of an all encompassing feeling that can be so many things at once. Like, it could be.

Yeah.

I could just come up with a lot of different energy all at once.

And you can't stop it.

And I cannot stop it.

It just keeps coming.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And because you can't find them by themselves, you have to. You have to take the whole package, you know?

Oh, yeah, like.

Yes, exactly. Every bit of me. You have to take it all together. You can't just take one thing out. I come as a package. So what would your, what would your moon be?

I think my moon would be a Craisin. Emotionally, like, sweet but sharp. A little sassy. I know my catchphrase in life is never forgive, never forget. And it brings a little bit of color, a little drama in. In small doses. And also we talked a lot about it in our cranberry episode, the Crazins.

Yeah.

Kids leaving them smushed up all over my classroom, which is kind of like what they do to my emotions every day. And how about your rising sign?

So the first thing that comes into my head has to be one of those little yogurt covered raisins.

Okay.

I mean, I am white. I'm soft and a little bit tangy. I guess that's kind of like where the sassy or the, the saltiness comes from. Maybe. But also maybe I come across as someone who's very nostalgic. And that's true. I think I am a very nostalgic person. Maybe a bit controversial, old school. Like old soul energy, like you kind of said. I think about the pumpernickel. It's either something that you really enjoy or it's something that you, like, don't want. There's no middle ground.

So people love you or they hate you.

Yeah, no, that's really true. I. I think though, that that is kind of my presence in the room is I come off a little bit strong when I'm like, open. When I'm like, I open myself and like when I'm My genuine self. I think it's. I think you either really are drawn to me or you really hate me.

Dang.

Maybe I need a therapist. Like, I'm, like, thinking about. I do actually have a therapist. I'm like, maybe I should talk to him about this.

Yeah. Keep sending your therapist these episodes.

Right?

I do like yogurt raisins.

Yeah.

And I have been your friend since high school, so.

Great.

My rising sign, I think, is the wasabi pea, the little dried wasabi peas. And I think that's me because, like, I come across as very calm, but that escalates quite quickly. Kind of, like secretly intense, you know, go to work every day. But I have a weird podcast called Plant Sluts and maybe surprises people with that, like, shot of wasabi.

Yeah, Like. Like in the middle of your nose, like, up into your head.

I think it's how I come across to others once they get to know me. I think with the social anxiety we mentioned earlier, before anyone knows me, I probably just come across as, like, the bag of trail mix, Just the most bland part or whatever. But if you really know me, I think I seem calm, but really have some big quirks. Let us know your trail mix. Sun moon rising signs on Instagram, ants pod. Comment on the seed post and tell us what you think yours are. It's time for us to try weeds, since you are still in your frozen tundra of Canada.

I rip it in.

Went to my backyard to grab this weed, literal weed that I've seen a lot and I wanted to try because it is a edible herb. And I'm gonna try nipple wart.

Mmm, sounds delicious.

It grows, like, all over especially. I see it in the early spring. It flowers later. I looked it up a little, and it's a medicinal herb, historically used to treat nipple soreness.

I assumed that it was called nipple wart because it kind of has a milky SAP. So I was like, oh, that's probably, you know, a leaky nipple.

I didn't see any milkiness when I picked mine, so I was extra cautious with the identification because I was looking for a milky SAP. But I think they're very young. It's the little babies. So I think they just haven't grown to have the SAP yet, which might actually make it taste better. It also has anti inflammatory, antiseptic and calming properties. And it's often applied topically or used in salads. And that is how I have it prepared today. I was gonna do a smoothie.

Yeah, I thought you said you were gonna do a smoothie I was gonna

do a smoothie, but then I think I have time blindness. Like ADHD induced time blindness or something. I had like four hours before we started recording this morning. What I thought I could do versus what I could actually do did not line up. And then I couldn't find that recipe. They recommended putting this stuff in a smoothie, so I wasn't sure if that was even a thing. But I still want to do a smoothie at some point. I'm just going to try it like straight up. I have it in a bowl, no dressing, with some sesame dressing. But I feel like I should try some before I do it. It's just like baby greens. It's kind of fuzzy with little spikes. All right, I'm trying it.

Oh, okay. Okay. Is it like fibrous?

It just.

Is that why you pulled it out of your mouth like that?

No, I'm just a picky lettuce eater. It tastes like. Like a spring mix. Like something you would have in a spring mix or. Yeah, it just tastes like.

Like lettuce.

Yeah.

Green.

Oh, I have so much in my yard too, so I really don't need to buy spring mix.

That's interesting in these economic times. Yeah, it's actually probably really great.

It always goes bad in the fridge anyway, so I can just pick this when I need it. I won't eat too much in case, never having had it, I get sick or something.

Yeah, you never know what you're allergic to until you eat it.

Yeah. So I won't just dig into that whole bowl that I prepared. And also we're recording, so that would sound awful. My grandmother has that thing where she can't listen to people eat or she kills them. What's that called again?

Misophonia.

Yeah, she has that and I know she listens, so I'll try not to eat too much during the episode.

I suppose because you're not allergic to some other asters, the likelihood that you're allergic to this is really low. If you're not allergic to dandelion leaves or even. I think artichoke is part of the Aster. Asteraceae family.

Okay.

So if you're not allergic to those, you're probably safe.

Nice. I'm glad I found a new salad mix. I feel like we should like clap or something like, woo. Trying random greens from my yard.

Good job. Good job, Jeanette. Expanding horizons.

I feel like once they get bigger, it wouldn't be as good like it. Being young and tender is why it's probably good.

I was Reading something recently, and I don't remember what exactly it was, but they said you should try and eat 30 different vegetables or 30 different vegetables and fruits throughout a week.

Oh, wow.

In order to get like a good balance of. And I was thinking in my head, I was like, do I eat 30 different types of plants?

Yeah. Huh.

But this is a good way to bring in some other things, right? That you wouldn't necessarily have part of your repertoire of vegetables and fruits.

So now we're going to continue our trail mix series with peanuts. You love them or you're deathly allergic to them. Covered in chocolate, ground into a butter powder, or spread on a dog's lick mat. Jonathan, tell us a little bit about peanuts.

I'm not going to ask anything about that dog lick mat. The different common names for peanut are pretty diverse. So I don't know if you've heard of some of these groundnut, goober, and even monkey nut.

I've heard of a goober sandwich or there's some sort of phrase that's like a goober is like a. Maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Have you heard of that?

No. That was news to me.

Okay.

They're all describing Arrakis hypogea, which is the scientific name for the peanut plant. They're indigenous to east of the Andes in South America. So what we would call today like Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, and ancient indigenous cultures like the Moche of present day Peru have even depictions of peanut in their art that kind of attest to the importance of it in their culture.

Oh, I'd love some peanut art up in my house.

They're actually not nuts, though. They're actually legumes. So similar to like a soybean or other kinds of pulses. The really interesting thing is that they're different because they're considered geocarps. Geocarpy is the rare phenomenon of producing seeds, or I guess seed like material in the ground.

So like a potato.

It's different from tubers because tubers aren't technically seeds. They're just plant tissues that can grow into genetically identical plants.

Oh, interesting.

After the flower is pollinated, the gynophore.

Wait, the wood. Now.

So it's the name of the part that elevates the female parts above the rest of the flower.

Please tell me this phenomenon is called gynophoria.

I hope it does catch on.

If it's not, we can write a paper.

After pollenization, the gynophore elongates and grows into this long tubular structure that then pokes into the Soil and makes a peanut. And you want to know what this phenomenon is called?

You don't want to know what I'm thinking.

Pegging.

Oh, my God. Wait, so the peanut grows into this long structure, pokes the soil, and they named it pegging?

Yep. So I found this quote from the National Peanut Board of the United States. Pegging is a unique feature. This budding ovary is called a peg. The peg enlarges and grows down and away from the plant, forming a small stem which extends to the soil. The peanut embryo is in the tip of the peg, which penetrates the soil.

Oh, my goodness, I'm blushing. Keep going.

Okay, well, I also found this quote from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture describing the peanut. After pollination, the flower falls off, and a shoot or peg, also known as a gynophore, begins to grow from the base of the flower, bends down, and pushes into the soil. This process is often referred to as pegging. The peg grows 5 to 7.5 centimeters into the soil, then turns to a horizontal position and matures into a peanut pod.

Wow. So all I have to do is Google peanut reproduction before bed.

You just have to make sure that you don't have the child filters on your. On your browser.

Just to think any child could Google this and find out about peanut pegging. Oh, my God. They need to block peanuts from school

computers, not just from school lunches.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a peanut free zone.

So when you plant a peanut seed, the first thing that emerges is. Which are called cotyledons in, like, not just peanuts, but other plants as well. It's the edible peanut that you put into the ground. Oh.

So the peanut that you eat, when you put it in the ground and it pops up after germination, you see that peanut that you put into the ground pop out?

Yeah. And it opens up in order to then, like, continue on the growing process. And when you open up a peanut, like, I don't know if you. When you open or break a peanut in half.

Yeah.

There's like a little bump at the bottom.

And so you mean like the individual peanut, not the whole big double peanut shell, but the actual little peanut.

Exactly.

You open that and there's a little bump.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That tiny little, like, bonus piece. Like it. The. You know, the little extra snack. Yeah, that's a thing. Like, that's a. That has a purpose.

Yeah. So that bump is actually the first true leaves.

Oh, wow.

Called the plumule. And the radical, which contains the cells that are able to grow roots. So basically, when you open it up, you're looking at what would be a future peanut plant. You can actually make out some of the first leaves.

Every time I open a peanut, I'll think, oh, maybe I should have planted it. But I feel like we should give a vocab test at the end. Cotyledons are that first Cotyledon. Cotyledons are that first little part to pop out. Plume are the first true leaves. And radicles are the parts, the cells that can grow roots. Is that correct?

Yeah, I pass.

I pass with a B. All right, so for all the plant slut listeners, we're not going to explain that again. You have to remember what those three parts are called.

Will you humor me on a weird entomological rabbit hole?

Entomological language. Rabbit hole.

Yeah.

Okay.

Depending on where you are in the world, what you call a peanut reveals a map of ancient trade routes in colonial history. How we name the peanut usually falls into two camps. So there's the original indigenous derived word, or there's the scientific derived word. The original would be cacao. So it comes straight from the Aztec word cacahuatl. Excuse my pronunciation. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they adopted the local name, and then they spread the peanut across Europe, which is why, for instance, in France, they call it cacaoet kaka wet.

Got it.

I know. Such an unfortunate name. Or arachidae, or a derivative of that word, is used in Quebec, Haiti, Francophone, Africa, and even in Italy. There's like, a word that sounds like this. It's based on the botanical name Arrakis hypogea, which I mentioned earlier. And it's a linguistic mashup because it uses the Greek word arachidna, which is a type of wild vetch, kind of similar. It's a legume, and they combine it with the description of how it grows. So hypogea means under the earth. What we use in Quebec, arrached, is more likely introduced from the US and not France, most probably from traveling circuses, American traveling circuses that would tour around and sell peanuts in Quebec.

So caco wet is the indigenous derived word, and arequide is the scientific one.

Exactly.

And that kind of shows us that France got peanuts originally from the Spanish, and in Quebec, peanuts came from US circuses in the 1800s.

Exactly. The most significant introduction, though, of the peanut to Quebec wasn't a crop, but a transformed product. In 1884, a Montreal chemist and pharmacist was granted the first patent for what we now call peanut butter. He was trying to create A protein rich food for people who had trouble chewing solid food.

So we often think of peanut butter as like a very American thing, especially when you go to like those import stores in other countries. It's like in the American section, but it's actually born in Montreal, like you.

Yeah, well, at least the patent. That's when it was patented as a process. It wasn't until 10 years later that Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, which you probably know because he was like a big cereal baron, as you can say. Oh, yes, the cereal baron created a version of the peanut butter. But crushing peanuts for food actually goes back as far as the Inca. It wasn't a new thing.

But you probably live close to where peanut butter was first patented. You could go visit that sacred ground.

I'm going to start a peanut butter museum.

Ooh, imagine the gift shop. That's the first thing I think about when I think of museums. The gift shop. That would have an amazing gift shop. To go into the history outside of Montreal a little bit more. The US Has a history of peanuts. And like all of the history in the United States, it's sadly starts with slavery. What happened was there was large scale growing of peanuts in West Africa prior to the 18th century. And then Africans introduced peanuts to North America during the transatlantic slave trade.

Interesting.

Peanuts were used as provisions on slave ships and then were cultivated in the US Using that agricultural knowledge carried by enslaved people. Then by the early 1800s, peanuts began to grow commercially, especially in Virginia, mainly for food and oil. But they were stigmatized back then as food for livestock or poor people or enslaved people. And now, going back into history, we want to think about soil. Can we talk about the soil?

Okay. Are you wearing your soil T shirt?

Oh, my God, I'm not. I'm wearing my Monet Chrysanthemums 1882 shirt, which is around the same time period. So soil in the US south was really depleted before the Civil War because of the large scale monoculture of cotton. And monoculture is when you're just growing like one plant dominant crop. One crop. This was kind of referred to as either soil exhaustion or being cottoned out, which I feel like that should have caught on being cottoned out as being just like totally depleted.

Yeah, I feel that way.

Sometimes getting cottoned out happens when there's the continuous planting of one crop without crop rotation or proper fertilization. Like we would do more today. This is a peanut episode. So you knew this time was coming. George Washington Carver enters the scene.

Right. There's no way we could have had an entire episode without talking about him.

Yeah. Before sustainability was cool, George Washington Carver promoted responsible farming practices, like planting peanuts in rotation with cotton, since peanuts are nitrogen fixing. Jonathan, can you explain if you know how nitrogen fixation works?

All right. All legumes, like peanuts, fix nitrogen through a mutually beneficial relationship with a certain bacteria in the soil. Rhizo. Rhizobium, I think it's called. The bacteria enter the root hairs and they form nodules where they convert the nitrogen from air into ammonia, which is what the plant uses to grow. And in exchange, the plant provides the bacteria with carbohydrates and energy through releasing these sugars from its roots.

Do you think that's something that a home, like hobbyist farmer or gardener needs to kind of think about, like, crop rotation and then nitrogen fixation? I'm always trying to move my plants, like, every year, but I don't know if I'm, like, overdoing it and overestimating how much my plants are depleting the soil. Like, can I keep growing tomatoes in the one sunny box that I have?

It's pretty mixed, I would say so. I have seen farmers or like, home hobbyist farmers say that they don't do any crop rotation, and there hasn't been a problem. Like, you know, they're still adding compost and nutrients. But in terms of, you know, quote, unquote depletion, it hasn't been a problem. I know that some home gardeners like to rotate their crops. I don't think it's a big problem. But I also want to clarify something which I think is not always understood. When plants fix nitrogen, they actually are providing enough nitrogen for themselves. They're not creating excess nitrogen into the soil. You're not benefiting the plants that are actually there next to the nitrogen fixing plant. The benefit is through multiple rotations. So you would have a plant that fixes the nitrogen, it stores the nitrogen inside of its tissues, and then you would cut it or kill the plant until it back into the soil. Then it would rot and release the nitrogen that it fixed in the previous season.

Okay, so if you're trying to do this in your own garden, it's important that we're not, like, pulling things and you're letting the plants die in the soil. If you're trying to get nitrogen added back in and become part of the soil again.

So what you'd want to do is leave the plant in your garden. So if you have a nitrogen fixing plant, you would want to then, like, not remove it out of the soil. And get rid of the material. You want to, like, cut it at the root, leave the roots in the soil for it to be able to decompose and feed your plants.

I wonder if it would still work if you're adding it to compost.

Yeah. I mean, that's why for home gardeners, it's not really needed, because you're already likely composting and then feeding it back to your plants. What's interesting is it could allow you having more nutrient cycling so that you're not adding more nitrogen and. But that you have plants that fix the nitrogen from the air for you. And then when you compost those, it then goes back into your soil instead of, like, buying compost from outside or, you know, having nitrogen fertilizer that you bring in. So it's interesting in that. In that way. And that's why it was, like, really important for cotton farmers, because you couldn't just bring in tons of, like, compost or nitrogen fertilizer. It was expensive. And the fertilizer is not the most ideal. You want it to be, like, in actual plant materials.

I didn't always know that you're supposed to leave the roots and plants when you're done with them and not pull them out of your garden container or your garden beds. And it helps improve your soil to kind of leave all that over the winter.

Exactly, because then the roots decompose, and it decomposes and makes like an air pocket. It just helps keep the soil structure healthy.

Thanks to George Washington Carver's crop rotation promotion and the creation of machinery that properly cleans the peanut plant, that crop spread throughout the country. And Carver began researching peanuts at Tuskegee Institute, which is a historically black university in Alabama, in 1903, and discovered more than 300 uses for them. That's kind of what he's known for. Oh, so I'm gonna go over that. Use number one. Eat. Use number two. Smush. Use number three. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know any of the.

Is smush Peanut butter?

Yeah. The song. First you take the peanuts in you, or you crush them. You smush the grapes. You're right.

I don't.

Damn it.

This song.

You don't know the Peanut Butter Jelly song?

No. Say it.

Oh, my God. You're tricking me.

No, I'm not. I really don't know what this song is. Well, I don't know. Sing it.

First you take the peanuts and you crush them. You crush them. You crush them, crush them, crush them. Peanut, peanut butter and jelly. Peanut, peanut Butter.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

I think I've just seen that on TV though. Like Sesame street or something.

Oh, you don't just sing it?

No, it wasn't part of my kids singing repertoire. Back to peanuts. So you said that eating and smushing were the two main uses, but I

had it wrong because it's actually crushing. And there's, you know, 298 other uses for peanuts. That's kind of like the simple version that you learn about George Washington Carver when you're like, in second grade. But he was really important to agriculture. He recognized that the peanut would be a valuable cash crop in the southeast. And partly because of his work, a lot of southern farming changed from focusing on cotton crops to peanuts. And then the stigma against peanuts started to dissolve by the end of the Civil War, as those farmers started to find peanuts to be more profitable then cotton, and both the northern and southern soldiers had been supplementing their diets with them. And then those traveling shows like P.T. barnum's Circus that we mentioned, they actually became the iconic baseball snack in 1895 when concessionaire Harry Stevens accepted them as payment for advertising. And he started selling them to fans to fill time during slow moments in the baseball game, because baseball is super fucking slow. Then they were kind of cemented as the baseball snack in that 1908 song, Take Me out to the Ball Game. Jonathan, will you sing that one for us?

Take Me out to the ball Game. I know that song. I don't know how that continues, though. That's the only part I know.

At that point, demand was growing, but hand harvesting limited the quantity and scale. So in the 1950s, there was the windrow method for harvesting peanuts, where machines called diggers lifted the plants, but workers still often had to stack them by hand to dry. And then in the 60s, the Digger Shaker Inverter, or DSI was introduced, and that would be attached to tractors. And the peanut combine allowed the entire process to be mechanized. The first practical peanut combine harvester was developed and tested in 1949 in Georgia, then with the commercial production starting in 1950. Before this, the process was labor intensive, involving pulling the plants by hand and stacking them around a pole to dry. For some more history. Peanuts, and particularly boiled ones, are deeply rooted in southern US Culture, symbolizing hospitality and heritage. There was just a, like a viral TikTok of a guy stopping in a southern gas station, and he was from, I think, like Australia or New Zealand, and the woman, like, gave him boiled peanuts, and he'd never tried them and he was so excited. And then she let him have them for free. And he was like, super excited to have that, like, real hospitality, which is what they symbolize.

Yeah.

And Alabama, Georgia and Florida produce over 60% of the peanuts in the US which highlights their agricultural importance in the area.

Peanut oil is an important industrial product in addition to it being used in frying foods because it has a very high smoking point.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. There's a place around here that markets their french fries as being fried in peanut oil. And they're actually like, really good.

I want to have some when I visit.

Yes. They also have a veggie. A veggie burger. That's really nice.

Oh, hell yeah.

So I always thought that the Montreal Metro, so like what we call the subway, had a really unique smell. And in doing some research, I found out that because the metro cars are run on rubber tires instead of metal tracks, they use peanut oil infused wooden brakes. It's a legacy from the first rail cards that they had in the 1960s. And it's still apparently superior and cheaper than any other alternative. And so that's why the metro stations in Montreal have a really peculiar kind of like burned popcorn kind of smell.

I want to see if I notice that when I come visit later this month. But that kind of makes me curious. Can people with peanut allergies ride the metro?

Yes, they can, because the oil is highly processed and so there's no allergens in it. And technically, when people are allergic to peanuts, they're allergic to the protein. And when you extract the oil, like, everything is taken out except for the lipids, the oils. And so in that case, especially in the industrial process, because it's like super refined. In this case, like, it's fine.

Oh, that's interesting. So we've learned all of these things about peanuts. Should we try to grow our own peanuts? What do you think? Should I plan that for my garden? I have some I can just stick into one of those seed starting packs that I up.

Well, I know that I can't say that because they're cheap. It's not worth it because I made up an excuse about the beans. Yes, exactly. The beans. I feel like they are probably just a little bit fussy, you know, and from some of the research, it doesn't look like they produce that much per plant.

Oh, that's what I was going to ask.

Yeah, I don't think that they're the most ideal crop for people that are

space constrained, especially if you eat peanuts like by the fistful?

Yeah. Do you eat peanuts by the fistful?

Yeah. But I was thinking about my beans, and I didn't feel like. But it was just my first year growing beans. I didn't feel like I got a lot. Like, enough for a meal. I got enough to plant this year again. But I feel like beans are also kind of similar in that way versus, like, peas, which you get a ton of in one plant.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. For me, I feel like it's the opposite. I'm not that great at growing peas for some reason, but. Oh, weird beans. Yes.

So to get into some folklore around peanuts in Vietnamese culture, you're not supposed to eat peanuts before a test because the word for peanut and get lost are similar in the Vietnamese language. And it's believed that one may get lost on their exam if they eat them prior to taking it.

Interesting. Yeah. I actually ate a lot of peanuts

in Vietnam, so they're popular there.

Yeah. The first time I tried boiled peanuts, I thought something was wrong. Like, I actually thought I was like, what is wrong with these peanuts?

Yeah.

But I prefer. I definitely prefer them more fried with, like, a lot of salt.

Oh, I don't think I've had fried peanuts.

I guess that's true. Hey, like. Because normally they're roasted.

I've had it in, like, a stir fry. Would that kind of make it then also fried?

Well, I just don't think it has the same texture. What I like about a fried peanut is how crunchy it is and toasty.

Oh, this sounds like something I need to find.

So speaking of languages.

Oh, wait, were we.

It's interesting. Like, I'm thinking about now, what you were saying. So in the north, the name Lac is what you would call a peanut, and its origin is from China. It's a shortened version of the Chinese name that includes the three characters fall flower and give birth, which you can translate into the plant whose flowers fall into the earth.

Oh, pretty lack.

It's true. Like, lac is also described for being lost. I never realized that they were the same word. Did you know that China is the largest producer of peanuts in the world?

I didn't, but I looked up some other folklore, and it makes sense that China produces a lot. Because they use them in their lunar new year, they're often given as gifts to symbolize luck and wealth. They're also known as longevity nuts. In China, peanuts are seen as a symbol of abundance and prosperity. And this could be from their ability to produce a large number of edible seeds in small spaces or their resemblance to the number eight, which also symbolizes prosperity. And eight is considered the luckiest number in Chinese culture, according to my research, because it sounds similar to the word to prosper wealth or to make a fortune. So the number eight is highly prized for, like, business or for your phone number, address, and important dates. And like, something like 888 would be even luckier. So they kind of see the peanut as a little number eight.

Well, maybe we need to reconsider not planting peanuts, it seems.

Yeah, if anything, they'll bring us some luck and abundance. I feel like I could do another spell for planting those, but I'll spare us. Thanks for getting slutty with us.

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It really helps our slutty gard garden to grow. B.

There's so much singing by sl. So much singing in this episode.

Please remove it all.

What?

Please remove it all. Do you know, like. So sorry, just to on an aside. Do you know, like, hands up? Like, hands up. Hands up, baby. Hands up. Give me your heart. Give me, give me your heart. Give me, give me. Yeah, and like, the French version is that.

No, I don't know the French version.

I don't know why I have, like, that was, like, the most popular kid song when I was in elementary school. I remember, like, singing that on, like, the bus with, like, the kids and the teachers.

I know the Japanese version of Mary had a Little Lamb.

Oh, sing that now,

Marisa. No hitsuji.

Okay, Okay.