Peanuts, Popcorn and Sweet Taters Gonna do a little something different here. Several years ago there was a game that came out called Tribond. It was kinda like Trivial Pursuit except rather than ask a question it would give you three things and ask you what they all had in common. An example, Nebraska, Ford Motor Company and a one cent piece. (Cue the jeopardy music). I know a few of you just did that in your head didnt you?! Go ahead and raise your hand if you did. And at least one of you raised your hand even though nobody can see you! But I digress. Got the answer yet? Lincoln. The local talk radio show had a contest once where you called in, they ask the question and if you gave the right answer you won a game. I called and the question was, Chicago, Boston and Alabama. (Cue the music again). I answered correctly, music groups. Why you ask do I bring this up? Well, I listed three things in the header to this and now I ask, What do they have in common? Peanuts and taters grow in the ground but corn doesnt. You bake peanuts to parch them and bake taters but not popcorn. Hmmmm! A conundrum! The answer is my Grannie and I cooked all three in the fireplace of the old house. The fire would be nice and warm and Grannie would get a hankering for a snack and she would recruit me to help make it. An old cast iron pan with a big lid, some butter or grease and some popcorn, sometimes homegrown and sometimes bought and we would get started. Pull a few hot coals out from under the logs and spread them out a bit on the hearth and put the pan on them. Didnt take long for the pan to heat up and the corn to start popping. Had to keep shaking the pan to keep the popped pieces from burning but wasnt always successful plus it was kinda hot that close to the fire so you kinda had to do it in spells. Always burned a few pieces but that just gave it character. A few years later someone came out with a wonderful idea, Jiffy Pop. This was an aluminum pan filled with popcorn, oil and such with a scrunched down top that would expand like a balloon as the corn inside popped. Much better than the old method. Dont know if they still make this anymore what with microwave popcorn nowadays. We didnt have microwaves so it was space age tech for a couple of hicks cooking at the fireplace just to the left of the middle of nowhere! We did peanuts pretty much the same way. Most folks called them roasted these days but we called them parched. Still buy a bag if I see some poor soul selling them somewhere. Helps them and and brings back a few memories for me. Plus, they are dang good! You didnt have to shake them as much but had to be careful that you didnt burn them. Occasionally we would wrap them in tin foil and bury them in the coals and just leave them there for about fifteen minutes or so depending on how hot the coals were. Smelled so wonderful on those cold winter nights. Which brings us to sweet taters. We would dig out the hot coals, make a space, place the taters in the hole, cover them with more hot coals and cover the whole thing with ashes. It was critical that the coals were all covered as if they werent they would get too hot and burn them. Covering them cut off the oxygen so they were still hot but not burning. A primitive method of temperature control if you will. After the appropriate time they were dug out, the ashes dusted off, opened up and butter, lots of butter, was added and it was on! Sugar and cinnamon if you so desired. Again, the smell was wonderful and a nice hot treat on a cold windy night when your Grannie was there with you! Doesnt get much better than that! Still bake sweet taters to this day but they are never the same!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:38:33 +0000
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