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| Boiled peanuts on left, unboiled on right photo by Katori |
C. Hope Clark is
author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series and also editor of
FundsforWriters.com, a website chosen by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best
Websites for Writers for the past 13 years. Her newsletters reach 45,000
readers. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website.
Peanuts and Palmetto Poison
Boiled peanuts are
the official state snack of South Carolina. Like a good Scotch, outsiders call
them an acquired taste, but Southerners are addicted. Travelers often find them
at roadside stands, ballgames and county fairs. They can be messy, and some
don’t shell out easily, but peanut connoisseurs swear the delicacies inside
each hull are worth every effort. Eat them outside, with a good beer or sweet
tea. They somehow seem to taste better that way, plus you can throw the shells
on the ground.
Word has it that
during the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression to a die-hard South
Carolinian,) a lack of supplies resulted from Union General William T.
Sherman’s successful split of Confederate territory. Soldiers had no bread or
meat, but they could sure boil up a big pot of peanuts, giving them much needed
nutrition. The combination of the salt and the boiling process allowed soldiers
to keep the peanuts for as long as a week.
Palmetto Poison,
the third in The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, takes the feisty and
inquisitive Slade into politics, confronting a shady governor with peanut
farming in his blood going way back, lots of skeletons he’d prefer remain in
the closet, and family deaths that don’t make sense. The setting is Pelion,
South Carolina, peanut capital of the state, as represented by their annual
Pelion Peanut Party, celebrating all things goober!
While boiled peanuts
are not pretty or exotic or found on many four- and five-star restaurants,
there is absolutely nothing that can substitute that flavor. The peanuts can
come from anywhere, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina or Texas, but they
all cook up the same way. And yes, you’re allowed to slurp as you eat them!
South Carolina Boiled Peanuts
30 minutes prep time.
4 hours cook time (depending on variety of peanuts used)
4-5 pounds of peanuts
(must be green, also known as raw, not previously cooked in any fashion – best
found in late summer months)
4-6 quarts of water
1 cup plain salt per
gallon of water
Optional seasonings,
such as crab boil, cayenne, Cajun, chili pepper, pepper flakes, garlic, onion,
Chinese 5-spice, jalapeno.
Wash unshelled
peanuts in cold water. Soak in large heavy pot of new water for thirty minutes.
Add more water, bringing the level to two inches over the peanuts. Add the
salt. Add the optional spice or your choice (or none.)
Bring to a boil, then
reduce heat to a simmer. Cover the pot and continue to simmer for approximately
four hours, checking occasionally to maintain the water level. The larger the
peanuts or thicker the shell, the longer you have to cook. Up to six hours.
At four hours, taste
a peanut for texture and salty flavor. Fully cooked results in a peanut the
consistency of a cooked dried bean. Remove from heat and drain to avoid
becoming overly salty. Eat hot, room temperature or chilled. They keep up to
one week.
(NOTE: You can freeze
cooked peanuts. They keep forever!)
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Palmetto Poison
Are peanuts capable
of murder? Carolina Slade will bust this shell game. Big money, big politics,
crime, greed, and big farming—Slade, an agriculture department investigator in
the steamy state of South Carolina, once again finds herself planted in a
dangerous mystery.
Her assignment? Find
out if there’s a sinister connection between the drug-dealing arrest of wealthy
peanut farmer Lamar Sheeler and the gruesome death of Lamar’s teenage son in a
car wreck. Especially since the dead teen is Governor Dick Wheeler’s nephew.
Of course, the
governor’s people practically sky-write STAY AWAY FROM THE FIRST FAMILY over
the Palmetto state’s capitol dome in Columbia, which doesn’t make Slade’s job
easier. Couldn’t she simply back off from what appears to be a tragic and
ugly—but private—family matter?
Not with hot-tempered
DEA agent Pamela Largo on the case. Ex-wife to Senior Special Agent Wayne
Largo, Slade's romantic interest, Pamela's hell-bent on using
Lamar Wheeler's situation to re-open a cold case involving an Atlanta
drug lord and Wayne's long lost sister Kay.
Soon Slade’s shoveling
shooflies uphill against Pamela’s obsessions, the drug lord’s vendettas, the
Governor’s secrets, and the bizarre realization that those secrets involve
peanuts with the ability to kill.
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