The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-03-05

! get one of the greatest pleasures in life
| in eating this edible, have any concep-
| ton as to the number of pounds that
| Worcester eats in the course of a month
or year.
For the sailed peanut trade it is esti-
mated that $4,000 pounds or nearly five
tons, of peanuts are roasted in the
course of q year. Mr. Shooshan
often roasts as many as $1,000 pounds
month, while in the dull season he
Will roast less or about 5000 pounds.
The general average for the year will
hold good at 5000 pounds a month. At
two Of the leading drug stores and
news rooms there are retailed in the
busy season from so to 70 pounds Of
peanuts each week. all sailed to suit
the taste. The mere fact that they are
sailed is sufficient, and the public that
is generally critical never recognizes
degrees of salt in the case of the tooth
some peanut. Other drug stores and
news stands not situated so centrally
average from rs to so pounds per week,
and they make a most tangible profit,
so that the peanut trade makes the
dealers heart beat financial tune to
the air of dollars and cents.
Mr.. Shooshan was asked what
class in particular bought salt
ed peanuts, and without mo
girls. And It is true. Girls from
the high school, whether they are high
in Latin or low in mathematics, have
an abnormal craving for sailed pea
nuts They will smuggle them into
school and smuggle them home. Not
only will their pockets show specs of
salt if they turn them out, but Eng
fish classics and dictionaries are filled
with the crumbs Of the precious morsel,
n epbnnl GIRL the
rising young school boy, whether he be
athelete or student. Mr.. Shooshan
says that the boys originally started
the habit of eating the nuts, but the
girls have improved upon it so success
fully that they have completely out
distanced their model.
Clergymen are users of the sailed
peanut. Mr.. Shooshan has on his
list the names Of two clergymen Of the
city who have strong prediction for
this dainty morsel. In fact, his list
of buyers Of sailed peanuts would be
as interesting as Mr.. Aborn's list of
customers, and there would be no more
surprises in the one case than in the
other
Dignified business men, with the flu
lures and margins resting on their
shoulders. who never look upon candy
except with contempt, do like sailed
peanuts, and creep into the drug
stores with the guilty pleasure of a boy
stealing his first green apple.
Ladies who are leaders in reform
movements, temperance work, and who
are the mothers Of families, do not see
any satanic allurements in a sailed
peanut, and eat with a matronly grace
that proves the worth of the nut.
The sailed peanut is a unifier in the
social order. While the socialists have
been trying to convert the capitalists
to their belief, and the single tax men
are moving in their sphere, the sailed
peanut has outstripped them, and
brought together on a plane OF common
pleasure and delight the rich and the
poor, the hereto and the sectarian.
As regards the process by which the
peanuts are prepared, they are first
placed in a common peanut rooster.
The capacity of this is 60 pounds. After
the peanuts have been thoroughly heat
ed or roasted, they are moved from the
roasting mortar, and deposited on d
wide bench, where they are all hulled
by hand. The hulling process is slow
and fatlguing, as both the shells and
the inner coating have to be removed
AS soon as the nuts are freed Of the
hulls, and yet contain an element Of
warmth in them. they are placed in
large faring pans and sailed. The salt
Is sprinkled over them and sifted
among them, until they look as IL they
had been sugar coated. Then they are