Behold, the peanut!

A long time ago, in a forum far, far away, I began a special interest thread by giving the following reason to live in Alabama:

"Alabama leads the world in the culinary presentation of the peanut."

And from there, the thread was on its way. I'd like a chance to revisit that particular Daily Reason for this new blog. Ladies and gentlemen, the peanut!

To begin with, Alabama is permanently known as the Land of Cotton. The old ancient photographs of acres and acres of cotton fields stretching out to the horizon are not so ancient - many parts of Alabama still look like that, and during the 19th century, cotton was definitely the #1 cash crop in Alabama. Therefore, the most hated, reviled creature in Alabama was the infamous insect known as the boll weevil. It's a tiny little snout-nosed beetle that feeds on the cotton flower bud, and destroys the plant's chances of producing cotton. In 1915, the state of Alabama was nearly laid to waste by the total destruction left by the boll weevil.

Many devastated farmers switched to other crops, and the southern counties of Alabama (affectionately known as L.A., which stands for "Lower Alabama") discovered the peanut. The newly found peanut crop single-handedly rescued the economies of most southern Alabama communities, and in fact, many towns in Alabama discovered that they were much better off with the peanut instead of cotton. Therefore, the city of Enterprise erected a statue in 1919 to honor and thank the boll weevil for forcing them to switch from cotton to the peanut, and it is the only known monument in the world erected to honor an agricultural pest.

At the exact same time, an agricultural researcher at Tuskegee named George Washington Carver began publishing some of his timely experiments to expand the many uses of the peanut. Many of the final numbers disagree with each other, but Carver published nearly 50 bulletins for farmers giving them over 100 creative recipes for the versatile peanut. He also created more than 100 products made from peanuts, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and nitroglycerin.

For me, the situation of the boll weevil perfectly describes the will and backbone of my beloved Alabama. It is the ultimate example of "give us lemons, and we'll make lemonade." We took the devastation of the boll weevil and turned it to our advantage. Many of the vast and varied uses of the peanut in today's society are traced all the way back to the innovation and determination of the indomitable Alabama farmer.