A small crop with a very long story
Peanuts have traveled across continents, crossed social classes and found their way into everything from ballparks to lunchboxes. Here is a closer look at where they came from—and a few things you may not know about them.
From the Andes to America
The peanut story is not a straight line. The crop moved with Indigenous peoples, explorers, traders, enslaved Africans, farmers, soldiers, vendors and inventors before becoming one of America’s most familiar foods.
The ancestors of the cultivated peanut originated in South America, on the eastern side of the Andes. Early people moved and cultivated peanuts across the region, and ancient remains and peanut-shaped pottery show that the crop had become important in Peru thousands of years ago.
Peanuts were more than everyday food. Archaeological evidence shows they were used ceremonially and placed in burials, evidence of the value they held in pre-Columbian South American cultures.
Spanish and Portuguese explorers encountered peanuts in South America. From Iberian ports and global trading routes, the crop began a remarkable trip around the world.
Traders carried peanuts to Africa and Asia, where they adapted well and became important foods in many regions. By the time peanuts reached English North America, they had already traveled far beyond their South American home.
Peanuts were introduced into North America in large part through Africans brought across the Atlantic. African food traditions helped establish the peanut in the American South; even the old American nickname “goober” traces back to an African word for peanut.
Peanuts were commonly associated with inexpensive food, livestock feed and poorer households. They were not considered refined fare by many wealthier Americans—a social image that would change dramatically over the next century.
Peanuts began to be grown commercially in the United States, with Virginia an early center of production. They were used for food and oil, but planting, harvesting and cleaning were still difficult and labor-intensive.
Both Union and Confederate soldiers ate peanuts as a portable, filling food. Soldiers who developed a taste for them during the war helped spread peanut consumption when they returned home.
Hot roasted peanuts became fixtures at circuses, fairs, street carts and baseball games. Their low price, aroma and portability helped turn the humble peanut into a familiar part of American public life.
Several inventors developed peanut pastes, nut butters and machinery that helped create modern peanut butter. By the turn of the century, improved processing was opening entirely new markets for peanuts.
New equipment for planting, cultivating, harvesting, shelling and cleaning reduced the enormous amount of hand labor once required. Better quality and consistency helped demand grow rapidly.
At Tuskegee Institute, George Washington Carver promoted peanuts and other legumes as rotation crops that could help restore Southern soils depleted by cotton. His research and public advocacy helped raise the peanut’s agricultural and commercial profile.
As boll weevils devastated cotton fields across the South, farmers had strong reason to diversify. Peanuts became an increasingly important commercial alternative.
Roasted peanuts, peanut butter, candy and peanut oil became everyday products. Virginia remains especially associated with the large-kernel Virginia type—the crunchy peanut at the heart of Pi’s Peanuts.
Did you know?
A few quick facts about the peanut’s biology, language and place in American culture.
Botanically, peanuts are legumes. They are relatives of beans, peas and lentils rather than tree nuts such as almonds or walnuts.
After a peanut flower is pollinated, a structure called a peg grows downward into the soil. The peanut pod then develops underground.
The “peanut gallery” was the cheap upper seating in American theaters. Peanuts were an inexpensive snack associated with those seats, and the expression eventually came to mean a group of hecklers, critics or unsolicited commentators.
The old Southern word “goober” for a peanut came into American English through African languages, reflecting the crop’s route into North America.
Virginia-type peanuts are known for especially large kernels and a pronounced crunch, which is why they are often favored for premium snacking.
By the late 1800s, roasted peanuts were commonly sold at baseball games. The 1908 song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” made “peanuts and Cracker Jack” part of the sport’s permanent vocabulary.
Like other legumes, peanut plants work with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in root nodules, reducing their need for added nitrogen fertilizer.
Runner, Virginia, Spanish and Valencia peanuts differ in size, flavor and common uses—from peanut butter to candy to in-shell snacking.
Historical and agricultural information is based on sources including the National Peanut Board, the U.S. National Park Service and standard dictionary/etymology references. Dates are approximate where developments occurred over time.