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Pippa Norman is a contributor to The Globe and Mail.
When my older sister was in kindergarten, her best friend told everyone that she was allergic to penis. My sister was not. In fact, she was deathly allergic to peanuts.
The allergy was a formative part of my childhood. My family subsisted mostly on a mélange of Italian, Mexican and British dishes, never stepping foot into any mildly Asian restaurants for fear my sister would come into contact with a peanut or one of its derivatives.
In a way, it’s funny that “peanut” can be mistaken for the word penis, since it wasn’t until I started dating halfway through high school that I tasted this forbidden food (ahem – we’re still talking about peanuts here).
At my first boyfriend’s house, I had to contend with the constant presence of peanut butter, ensuring I had rid myself of any traces of it before going home. But I also discovered something magical in the process – it was delicious. My boyfriend’s mum, thrilled to finally have a girl in the house, spoiled me by buying me my own jar of Kraft peanut butter to keep at their house (it was even the organic kind, so my boyfriend and his two brothers knew it was out-of-bounds).
When my sister left for university and I entered Grade 11, I gained greater freedom in my peanut consumption. But not long after, I came to terms with an eating disorder I had developed called orthorexia, and eating peanuts went from pure pleasure to something of a necessity.
Orthorexia is characterized by an obsession with “healthy eating.” Simply put, I began eating a lot more salads and a lot less bread – none of which was good for my growing, athletic, hormonal body. I became small, irritable, anxious and unhappy. When my mother recognized this (and I came to terms with it) we sought help.
One of the first instructions I received from my new psychotherapist was to start eating a spoonful of nut butter with breakfast every morning. I had lost my period and those healthy fats were going to be key to getting my hormones back in order (it would be years, and tons of peanut butter, before I regained a healthy menstrual cycle). This was when my mum decided I could keep peanut butter in the house. It came with tight rules – no eating it when my sister came home – but it was there.
From then on my relationship with, and appreciation for, the peanut rapidly evolved. The nut went from forbidden fruit to my recovery food, and people who cared about me took to the peanut to show their love. I distinctly remember my high school boyfriend showing up at one of my Nordic ski races (which I affectionately chose to compete in despite it being on Valentine’s Day) with a container of what he called “peanut butter boulders.” I peeked in at my Valentine’s present – bulging balls of what appeared to be 85 per cent peanut butter and 15 per cent other scrumptious goodies – and got instantly weak in the knees.
Since high school, this tradition has continued. I have been gifted several jars of peanut butter on holidays, including my birthday and Christmas. My current partner – a Cambodian-Lithuanian man – is helping me expand my repertoire of peanut products from the good ol’ spread to an extensive list of Asian dishes I’ve never tasted before. His pad thai (topped with roasted peanuts) was a tipping point for falling head over heels for him (notice the pattern?).
The tiny peanut has loomed large in my life, but I recently learned from David Bertioli, a professor at the University of Georgia who has dedicated his career to tracing the legume from its wild origins to its cultivated present, that it’s played a “tremendously important” role in global food history. The wild peanut, which has about 100 species, has been around for tens of thousands of years, Bertioli explained to me. We’re not sure exactly how far back the modern peanut dates, but we know it was in Peru 4,000 years ago, and then spread around the world. Today it is consumed in the global south as a sauce, snack and even alcoholic beverage, while moonlighting as a butter in the north when it’s not being munched on in its original form at a Super Bowl party. “It’s very valuable because it has high energy, excellent protein and good iron,” Bertioli said.
Regrettably, the value of the peanut is something I didn’t appreciate until later in life. It took me about three years to fully recover from my eating disorder, but now, I make a point of getting my daily peanut quota in. I may eat more of it than most people, but anytime someone questions the quantity of my consumption, I gently remind them that it’s my super-food – a symbol of love, strength and independence in my journey toward recovery.
What else we’re thinking about:
RW Witmer LLC is a small company based in Orrville, Ohio, that makes exactly three things: a revolutionary home-use peanut butter mixer, a beach umbrella anchor and a newspaper mailbox guard that protects your daily paper delivery from wind, rain or snow. Reviewed by Wirecutter, and raved about by Jimmy Kimmel, the peanut butter mixer, in particular, is something to behold. And may I also say – what a delightfully specific repertoire of products RW Witmer has come up with.
Marianne
Illustration by Marianne Kushmaniuk
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