Monkey Nuts

Having eaten gazillions of peanuts in my lifetime I was astonished when I bought some from this lady on the beach in Vung Tau, Vietnam.

They looked like monkey nuts – peanuts with the shell on. Well I guess they were monkey nuts but the difference was that they had just come out of the ground. I cracked one open and popped it in my mouth and discovered it was squishy, a little bit blobby. On closer inspection I could see they still had a downy skin on. They were plump and snug in their shell and hadn’t been roasted.

The people sitting next to us seemed to enjoy them but they didn’t float my boat.

It made me curious though so I checked out fresh peanuts and discovered a few facts.

Peanuts are not nuts. They’re legumes, hence the pea status in their name

They grow on bush type plants which flower as do all pea plants but they then throw down a tendril which buries itself and the peanuts grow under ground.

The peanuts we usually eat have been boiled or roasted.

So there you go!