Delicacy

When you go back home, or in my case to something more akin to a second home, there are certain things one you must do or get no matter what the circumstances under which the trip is made. In the case of this wedding excursion to Sarasota, we just had to get a certain treat which is not easily acquired elsewhere (although making it is probably not impossible). I speak of that particular delicacy, boiled peanuts. It is a beloved food up around Gainesville and parts adjacent, but does not appear to be fully as embraced even down where we found ourselves on this occasion.

We saw just one place advertising it, although a roadside stand on the highway from Tampa to Sarasota might have had it for sale had we passed it during operating hours. No, we had no choice but to take our chances at a gas station which we had passed on our way to one of the keys. It is needless to speculate on the clerk's country of origin, but I feel I'm on solid ground in guessing that boiled peanuts are not something with which he is intimately familiar except that he must know his place of employment sells them. I don't imagine he personally was charged with the preparation of the peanuts or the upkeep of the crock pot.

In addition to betraying no knowledge of boiled peanuts, he was bound and determined to not grasp why a sealed bag would be necessary to contain them on a flight back to California. A cursory search was made for baggies sold there, but eventually he understood that we wanted a plastic bag for the styrofoam cups of piping hot peanuts we had purchased. Once in the car, a single peanut brought back vivid memories of the car trip from Gainesville through Palatka and on to Crescent Beach. If only I could lay my hands on the mix tape I was so devoted to at that time, the sensory experience would be complete.

Yet I must confess that it was not a perfect thing. It really has to be that rustic road side stand overflowing with oranges, limes and all the typically southern foods and necessary materials therefore. The gas station was but a gas station, and having to retrieve the peanuts ourselves from amongst dispensers of slushees, coffee and soda in a generic, purportedly sanitary gas station in the middle of a town just did not quite get it there. Oh, the peanuts were fine, and I would not have known them to be distinct from those of the desired source, but having been there at the procurement I know. Anyway, we got the peanuts.