That secret turned out to be one on the most expensive cooking lessons I have ever had.
This took place during my truck driving days. I had been working all year traveling all over the country and took a weeks vacation. I left Louisville where my home office was and drove my 1972 Chevy Van South until I got to Southern Ga. My friends Gary and Karen lived in Fitzgerald and they had notified me that a visit to their home was overdue.
Gary and Karen did their best to make my visit fun and enjoyable. Karen took me to the Okefenokee Swamp so I could see the alligators. And of course she tried to fill me with some of that good Southern cooking. And I did my best to please her by cleaning my plate of all she served. That's is until she gave me some boiled peanuts.
I should mention that my friends moved to Georgia several years ago from the North where I am from. You would think Karen would know how to boil peanuts, but alas, I guess that was a secret because she told me they were a little crunchy. She hadn't figured out just how they cooked them out on the highway. By the way the highway was where you got the best boiled peanuts. Every exit had at least one boiled peanut stand with a little old lady or gentleman selling them. She even went so far as to buy an iron pot with a gas burner under it to boil those peanuts. But she just never mastered the art of boiling peanuts. The reason I thought there was a secret was because I figured as long as they had lived there, someone would have broken down and told her what she was doing wrong.
Well after spending a great week visiting. It was time to head back to Louisville so I could get on my truck and spend another month driving. All I had to do was load up my van and head north for about 10 hours. No problem right? That's what I do for a living. I headed out as planned and managed to make it as far as the Macon Bypass. About half way through the bypass my van started rattling and shaking in the engine compartment. I got off at an exit and checked my oil and found it was quite low, so I bought 3 quarts, put it in and headed out again. I didn't even get to the next exit before the rattling and shacking started again. I pulled off the highway and thought about the situation I was in. After letting the engine cool down I took off again and took the next exit and pulled into a convience store lot.
Before I could get the van shut down the worst happen. I threw a rod. Now I am one of those people who buy's a vehicle for transportation only. I don't really care what kind or how it looks. In fact I will buy an old car or truck and drive it until it quits then check how much money I have in my pocket and that determines how good of a new car I buy.
It didn't take long for me to figure out just how deep a pile of doo-doo I had stepped in this time. I was stuck. That van wasn't going another mile without major repair work. In this case major repair meant another engine. Needless to say I didn't have enough money to get another engine and of course because I had to be in Louisville in two days, not enough time to get it fixed.
It took me the rest of the day to get in contact with someone who could help me. After calling home to people in Indiana. I found no one who could help me at that time. I called Karen 4 or 5 times and finally got a-hold of her around 7pm that night. We made arrangements that I would spend the night in my van and she would drive to Macon and pick me up the next day and take me to Atlanta. I would go to my company's Atlanta terminal and try and get a ride with another trucker from there to Louisville.
So now I have the problem solved as to how I am going to get back to Louisville. I still have another problem. Just what the heck was I going to do with my old van? I got a lot of miles out of that old truck. It had windows all around. Plenty of space to haul stuff, I could even sleep in it. Which is what I did that night. I had my lazy boy chair in there. What it was doing in there, I don't know, but I was grateful that it was. I tilted that old chair back and slept like a baby.
I woke up around 6am the next morning, went into the convience store and bought myself a cup of coffee. After going to the restroom and cleaning up a little, I took a walk around the area. Karen wasn't supposed to show up until around 11am or so. On the same lot as the store, there was another business. No one was there when I pulled into the lot but the door was open today. It turned out to be an auto parts store with an attached garage. I went in and explained my problem to this old guy who was bent over an old iron pot in the middle of the store. He was cooking, you guessed it, Boiled peanuts.
After talking with him awhile, I determined that it would cost too much to fix the old van. It would just be cheaper for me to replace it with something the next time I went home. He told me he knew someone who would come pick up the van and take it to a junkyard for scrap and the guy would give me 35 dollars for it. But the peanut boiler also told me he would give me $50.00 for it. I told him I would think about it and get back with him.
After sitting in the van for a while, I came to a decision. I went back into the auto parts store and made that feller an offer. If he would give my friend Karen the secret on how to boil peanuts so they were not crunchy, I would trade him my van for that information. He looked at me, smiled a little bit and said it was a deal. We even shook on it.
10 O'clock came and went and no Karen. I was just starting to get a little worried, when she showed up. We unloaded the van of the stuff I felt I just couldn't get along without into her Aero Star van. She asked me what I was going to do with the van, just leave it there? I told her no, I had made a deal on it and now was the time to take payment.
We went into the Auto parts store and I told the old feller that now was the time to part with the secret of boiled peanuts. Well he told her the only thing she probably wasn't doing was soaking the peanuts for a day or so in a bucket of water. She agreed that she had never thought of that. Does the word Beans ring a bell? I never mention this before but when you boil peanuts you do it with the shells on. And you serve them with the shells on also.
Well we got back into the car and just before taking off, Karen looked at me and told me I had gotten ripped off on that deal. I couldn't believe it. I had just managed to get the secret of boiled peanuts for her and she was telling me I had gotten ripped off. After explaining what she meant, I could only agree. So I went back into the Auto parts store and told that old gentleman that she said he had ripped me off.
You should have seen the look that guy gave me. I thought, "Oh boy here we go" But then I told him Karen said we should have gotten at least one bag of boiled peanuts to sweeten the deal. After giving a big belly laugh. He proceeded to fill up a big bag of peanuts direct out of the pot. It is quite a ways from Macon to Atlanta. A couple hours driving if I remember right But we were just finishing the peanuts when we pulled into the Atlanta terminal. I haven't had Boiled Peanuts since then but you can bet I will always rate the peanuts I eat with that bag I got for the van. They sure were tasty.
Well there you have it. A 1972 Chevy Van for the secret of Georgia Boiled Peanuts.
And to this day I still think I got the best of the deal. Or at least Gary did.
Rod Smith
May 11, 2000