The Hunt for the Bay’s Best Boiled Peanuts

You know the kind of Saturday: when you wake up, the humidity is low and it almost feels cool (for October in south Alabama, anyway). You put on some blue jeans — because it’s the first time in longer than you can remember that you can without dying — and head out to run some errands before the game kicks off. A quick stop at the hardware store, maybe a run by the grocery for some Conecuh for the grill and a case of beer. Somewhere on your route, you stop off for boiled peanuts. Is it really a fall Saturday without them? Especially if football is on the agenda. 

The best boiled peanuts come from one of two places: a side of the road farm stand, preferably with no real walls to speak of and a chain link gate for a front door, or a gas station, preferably one that is not affiliated with a national gas company. The former probably buys the green peanuts from a farmer they know or are related to and puts a plastic bag of goobers in a paper sack for you to take home. The latter, well, I don’t know where they get them, but you self-serve the peas into a Styrofoam cup and check out with the lady who smokes too much but calls you sweetie. It’s a Southern Saturday rite of passage.

I know you can get boiled peanuts other places (like from the neighbor’s Crock Pot or in a can), but I don’t know about Buc-ee’s. I am sure they sell boiled peanuts and I am sure someone is going to tell me they are great, just like their kolaches, deer feeders and bathing suits (that’s a real thing). But I am sticking with the mom-and-pops on this one.  There’s just something about pulling a handful of warm legumes out of a slightly-soggy, unsealed container that feels natural. If you have a local corner store that keeps them hot and ready, consider yourself lucky. For everyone else, here’s a list of places readers told us do ‘em right.