oh, they are such tasty memories
This is a shell and eat Pastime.
The memories for this Pastime of “parched” or roasted peanuts came from a unique little businessman who once roamed the streets of Warren. Parched peanuts have become a winter time specialty, I now equate with deer hunting or sitting outside around a fire ring in these cool, fall and early winter evenings.
I want to thank Suzette Woodard Russell for her Facebook post about “parching” some peanuts for her wonderful husband, Eddie.
The mention of “parched” peanuts and that very unique, distinct aroma, came wafting back from the recesses of my memory.
I am of the last generation who can fondly remember Bobby Creed riding his red Schwinn bike all over Warren, selling popcorn and ‘parched’ peanuts in little white and red striped popcorn bags all over town.
Bobby later gave up bike riding and one-on-one selling to racking up snooker and pool games in the back of Wayne’s every day for very few tips and I am sure a meager wage per hour in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Creed, a very faithful member of the First Baptist Church of Warren. And he was the ‘language enforcer’ at the pool hall.
Too many loose words or a reckless “whack” of the pool cue on the floor or side of the playing tables, would bring him up off this spectator’s stool on the north wall of the pool hall with a quick verbal rebuke.
He would not tolerate foul or dirty talk language.
“Don’t talk like that!” he would say, rising up to his full five-foot, six-inch height as he was the aproned enforcer of all things calm, decent and good in the pool hall.
Only once did I see a bully from another town “bark” back at Bobby.
He told the offending potty-mouth he (Bobby) had heard enough of that kind of talk.
Paul Whitaker, suddenly appeared at the pool hall door way through the kitchen wiping his hands on the white apron, to back up Bobby Creed.
The offender got the message to cool it or leave.
There was no more cussing for effect that day.
Bobby had a little building, a shack, if you over on Cedar Street next to the Pastime Theater and Weiss Jewelry. From this tiny outlet, Creed would hang his head out of the window to watch the traffic drive by.
He sold his popcorn and peanuts from a wire basket on the bicycle handlebars. He knew the time for the shifts at all the local lumber mills and often was in place to catch those working off the premises to a local grocery store for a soda pop, smokes or chewing tobacco for lunch.
Bobby Creed also knew where to slow walk his bike downtown to catch the crowds slipping off to the retail district over to Wayne’s or down to Dave Spakes or up to Hughes Café for an afternoon cup of coffee.
And if there was a session of Circuit Court at the Bradley County Courthouse one might see Bobby Creed with his wire basket, which he with a simple wrench loosened the basket from the bicycle and toted it into the courthouse steps for sales.
In his later years, Bobby would walk the streets of downtown Warren with his wire basket draped over his arm selling popcorn and peanuts.
Only at Christmas time did he offer and only rarely, some roasted pecans and walnuts. These were indeed a rarity, but with the Chamber of Commerce’s Santa House on the corner of Main and Cypress, Creed hung around that area, knowing the parents and grandparents of the Santa visits might spring for a bag of popcorn or peanuts.
Only if you’re a Southerner or if you’re from an older generation, you might recognize the term “parched peanuts.”
The word parch means to toast under dry heat, to dry until shriveled, or to bring to the point of scorching.
Parching peanuts is no more than roasting them in an oven.
Do them right and they will have a delicious roasted flavor; the nuts will be neither shriveled or scorched with tiny burned spots on them – but an even roasting on all sides.
Do it wrong and the hogs will not touch them. Eating scorched peanuts is not an opening – no matter how hungry one thinks they are.
How to Prepare Parched Peanuts is rather simple. All you need are fresh, clean, raw peanuts (dust free) and a traditional kitchen oven.
Step 1
Preheat a conventional oven or a toaster oven to 350 degrees F.
Step 2
Place a pound or two of raw peanuts, still in their shells, in a shallow pan or cookie sheet. Put no more than one layer of peanuts in the pan.
Step 3
Place the pan with the unshelled peanuts in the oven after it has reached 350 degrees. Cook for 20 minutes, then remove them from the oven, turn the oven off, and allow the peanuts to cool.
Shell and serve.
The key to parching peanuts is the pan.
I’ve seen some use a thin cookie sheet. Others a big, deep cast iron skillet. Others a simple 9 x 13 cake pan.
I’ve known those who mid-way through the process – shake, toss or move the peanuts around – one relative used a long-handled wooden spoon – to reposition the peanuts in the cooking dish.
All and I mean all of them would turn the oven off and then let the peanuts – in the pan sit in the oven until the pan could be retrieved with no oven mitt in play.
Most of the relatives then poured the peanuts into a brown paper bag.
No salt. No seasoning. Just peanuts – “parched peanuts” – in the shell.
Now having worked in the Arkansas Delta for several years – this is not Boiled Peanuts. Those are totally different ways to cook a mess of peanuts.
But I have seen a 1980s era Cadillac car belonging to a cotton buyer who loved to eat parched peanuts. The entire back floorboard of that Caddy was several inches thick of the brittle, brown peanut shells.
He may have loved the ‘parched peanuts,’ but so do I.
I wish I had a brown paper sack full of these right now.
A Pastime of cracking’ fun and tasty treats in time for wintertime goodness.
RACK!!! a found memory. Looking back and knowing all along that growing up in Warren in those days were great with great people that have long been gone. French fries and a glass of milk from the iron cow at Dave’s Cafe another found recollection.