When one thinks of Georgia’s food culture, items such as peaches, pecans and barbecue come to mind.
Peanuts should be on that as well, experts suggest.
Georgia grows more than half the peanuts in the United States — and these little legumes are a key part of the state’s economy, said Don Koehler, executive director of the Georgia Peanut Commission.
“Peanuts are not only good to eat. They’re good for you,” said Koehler, adding that consuming peanuts has been shown to prevent heart disease.
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“To have a super food that we grow here in Georgia, it really is kind of exciting,” he said.
Peanuts, explained Koehler, are not native to Georgia, and have a rather unusual story of how they wound up in the state.
Native to South America, peanuts played an important role in Indigenous cultures there, said Koehler, and were even featured on pottery and used in spiritual rituals.
When European explorers made their way to South America, they became enamored with peanuts, and took the plants with them on their travels back to Europe and onward to Africa.
In Africa, peanuts quickly became very popular, and remain staples of West African cuisine to this day.
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In the 18th century, slaves from West Africa brought peanuts with them across the Atlantic Ocean, in what Koheler called a “dark part of our history.”
“The slaves brought peanuts because they were used to eating them,” he said. “So they brought them over here.”
Georgia’s climate would turn out to be ideal for peanut growth, and peanuts are now the state’s “official state crop.” Today, the state grows about 52% of the peanuts in the United States, nearly 1.5 million tons.
There are about 4,000 peanut farmers in Georgia, with the most famous being former President Jimmy Carter.
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