Peanuts

Right, so what's up with the peanuts in this country? Maybe its just me.

The thing is, a few years ago I used to be bananas about peanuts. I used to cane a whole bag (however big it was, usually the 2nd largest in the supermarket) in a night. Most nights. Literally. I loved my vice but over a year or two it had, err.. unforseen effects on my digestive system. I laboured on but it got to the point where I just had to stop.

Stopping wasn't easy. But I did it.

I never quite kicked the habit altogether though. And that's where my dissatisfaction with peanuts started.

After a few months I decided I deserved a bag of nuts. I won't pretend that I wasn't more or less wetting myself with excitement when I ripped open my KPs.

I think its nomal with any naturally occuring food for the occasional individual to be inconsistent with the ideal. For example, every now and again you get a tasteless watery avocado (actually that gives me an idea...). Peanuts are however processed and whilst that's seen as a Bad Thing these days - rightly so - I would suggest that it should afford more consistency to peanuts than you find with non-processed foods.

So what the f*ck happened to KP salted nuts?

They surely are the most ubiquitous nut. I was never responding to any aspirational lifestyle branding black magic and I was never particularly set on KP for any reason other than their easy availability. I sure had built up brand loyalty though- that shiny blue packet really meant peanuts to me. I used to start salivating well before the first peanut actually made its escape from the bag.

The point I'm trying to make is that the KP peanut was (a) delicious but also (b) the peanut that is always there. Petrol stations, newsagents, vending machines - KP are in the house. So when I found that this bag of KP nuts seemed consistently bad instead of consistently good, I thought it was a freak bad and it would be a piece of cake to re-discover my dream nut. The next bag would be fine. Or if for some bizarre reason KPs had just lost the ability to put out good peanuts I could just avoid that brand, all those other brands you see in the shops (Nobbys, Big D, Planters, supermarket own brands etc) are bound to be fine. How wrong I was.

Remember, I had given up peanuts, so I had to wait a few months before my resolve crumbled sufficiently to allow me to again buy a packet and settle in for a good old binge. Being the ubiquitous nut, I again found myself with KPs. And again they were pants.

And that has been the pattern for ages now. For a couple of years I've been bingeing on crappy peanuts and broken dreams. I almost gave up completely on peanuts. If it weren't for finding the occasional packet of Big Ds to buoy up my remembered ideal nut I might have moved on to frazzles or something by now.

I have four main complaints about modern nuts.

1. They are brittle.
2. They are bitter.
   
3. They are not oily enough.
4. They are not salty enough.
   

It may be that these points are related. I'm not an expert. It may be that more oil makes a nut less brittle, or more salt reduced the bitter taste. But they seem like distinct problems to me. To be frank I suspect that shit nuts are cheaper than good nuts, and that less fatty snacks are more popular with the masses of Heat readers who think that eating low fat crisps and drinking sugar free coke will result in weight loss.

KP nuts are not the nut I remembered. Nor are any of the supermarket own brands I have tried (I would imagine that I've tried Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose). Happy Shopper nuts are cheap and nasty (funny that). Nobbys do not make the grade.

I wonder if I'm alone in this? Maybe there are hordes of crisp loving people out there who, whilst their backs were turned fell victim to salt & vinegar Walkers changing for the worse and endured similar turmoil as a result. Things might be even worse for this group actually, as Walkers now makes every crisp in the world, ever.

I have found Big D nuts to be great actually. But they're almost impossible to find in the shops. Pubs are where you find Big D nuts (usually covering a naughty photo of a naughty lady). And I don't go out anymore.

The happy ending to this story is that a few weeks ago, my girlfriend brought home a packet of Planters. I hadn't tried Planters until then, I guess I hadn't come across them when the urge was on me. But - joy. Planters make a fine salted peanut and are freely available at my local Waitrose. So more or less whenever I want it, I can get a mouthfull of salty, oily nuts. I can be happy again.