The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-08-15
WHY PEANUTS ARE POWDERED

There is not mucn to a peanut, TO
look at it. 1t grows on d farm and
is ready to eat after IL has been
roasted. A careless deduction would
link up the farmer, the commission
merchant, then the grocer or Michael
Angelo. That would be a mighty
careless deduction. though The first
time a lot of Unroasted peanuts are
encountered rub one on a piece Of
dark cloth and observe the white
mark IL leaves. That is talcum pow
der. They powder peanuts to make
EN- look pretty, which is just why sis
powders her face, and in that partic
ular peanuts and girls are both alike
Any farmer can grow peanuts, but
no farmer can sell them to the con
sumner. The peanut he grows is not
fit to put on a stand, at least not I'M
til it has been touched up. Look al
the peanuts on the next push cart
and see how even they run as to
size They have all been sorted
Observe how clean they are, and now
white this lot is, how gray that lot is
and how uniform all the different lots
are They have been sorted
When the peanut it grown it is
gathered and carried to a miller. who
puts it in a great bin and later car
ries it over to his mill. where he has
a continuance just chOck full of
brushes. These brushes get almost
every fieck of sand and dirt out of
the peanuts, which is more than the
farmer could have done if he had
spent the summer trying Then the
brushed peanuts go on to another
sort of a mill and by being tossed
about they get their hulls polished,
and while that is being done they are
toll To-
by the time they come out of this ma
chine they are as white as they are
to appear in public
But the peanut is not ready for
market yet 1t is alongside a lot of
larger or smaller ones. hurting the
appearance of the larger ones while
1t does not enhance the value of the
smaller ones. To even JTD masters
the output of the talCUm powder pol
ishing machine Is run out onto A
great canvas belt. which travels for
fifty feet or more slowly. On either
side of this belt are boys and girls
These sort the peanuts as they pass.
this squad picking out tde biggest.
that squad taking the next largest.
and so on down till the smallest are
left Shells that have lodged the
powder rag are thrown back into the
mill and broken hIlls are thrown
away.
That is about all for the peanut
now, excepting the roasting. II has
to be roasted There is popular
superstition that the Italian vendor
rOaStS the peanuts in his little pu-h
cart All he does is keep them hot
They are roasted at the mill, tons at
a time, cooked to a nicely by expert |
enced men, who have thermometers
and all sorts of appliances to show |
them when a petnut is done" This |
roasted product is the one that the |
Italian buys, and when he gets it he |
pops it into his little fake rooster /
and warns il over. It takes a long
time and lot of work, and hosts OF /
boys and girls to get the nfckeTs /
worth of hot roasted petanuts in the /
red and b1ue-stTiped bag, but there i !
a reason for it all. and the reason is /
that sack of even-Tun SmalI-sized /.
peanuts will find a buyer quicker /
than a sack of big and little ones all 7
mixed up together The stomach /
likes the eye to make a good rpnOrt /
and the peanut commission merchant /
underst ands that a shining shell. I
with iDdentations filed with taIcUm /
powder pleases the eyes. and he has |
no computations about the Dowdpr /
box, because he has found out that 1
in roasting the heat drives off the
surplus talcUm, so that is why if one
wants TO find out for true about this
trick OF the trade. il will be ne~as-
saTy 10 get hold of an unroasted and
not a roasted peanut
BY way OF good measure IT migbf
be added that the sheIled peanuts.
generally sold sailed, have been run
through treshins machine. which
breaks the hull and blows il out OF
the way Only Spanish SHELF nuts
can be so treated The tougher bulls
have to go TO Signor ItaIiano.-KaD-