Across the United States, you can find roasted or boiled peanuts at crowded events like ball games, fairs, festivals, and carnivals. An omnipresent part of global bar culture, peanuts are typically served as a snack, usually paired with foamy beer on tap and glasses of cheap wine to lure the customer into drinking more. It’s an essential ingredient in candy, sauces, dressings, crispy fried chicken, on sandwiches, and in pies. Served on airplanes and even in burger joints, peanuts are firmly planted into the national culinary identity of the United States.
The peanut is also deeply embedded in the Black diaspora and its many cuisines around the world, where the nut makes an integral appearance in West African dishes such as mafé and suya. Chef Bintou N’Daw of Bintü Atelier in Charleston reminisces about growing up with various peanut dishes. “As a kid, I remember the sounds and smell of grandma sitting on the mat and roasting peanuts on the wood fire,” said N’Daw. “I was fascinated as a kid by the way she would throw them in the air, and it would separate the skin, but she would always keep some skin on for color.” Peanut soups and stews like mafé were also the chef’s first solid foods as a child. “Some [peanuts] were pounded to make peanut flour for sauces, some would be pounded with a little more oil to make peanut butter for mafé, and some would be on a morning peanut sandwich served in a warm French baguette,” said N’Daw.
The groundnut’s journey into Black foodways is extensive, starting first in ancient South America — where, throughout the history of brutality and colonisation in the Americas, peanuts were vital to the survival of the Indigenous and the enslaved Africans and their descendants — and now, in farmlands across provinces in China and fields across West Africa, the largest producers of peanuts, before finally ending up on restaurant tables and in homes here in the U.S. and beyond.
Peanuts originate in the tropical climates of South America. A natural hybrid of two plant species, Andean cultures would domesticate the plant alongside other pre-Columbian indigenous crops like potatoes and squash. Highly regarded and used in ceremonial practices and enjoyed as food, these plants would then be introduced to Asia, Africa, and Europe throughout the colonial era.
“Peanuts are believed to have been introduced to West Africa from South America, brought by Portuguese traders during the Transatlantic slave trade,” chef Awo Amenumey of North Carolina’s Eh’vivi Ghanaian Cuisine explained. “Over time, peanuts became ingrained in local agricultural practices and cuisine, contributing to the region’s culinary identity.”
When introduced, Africans took to the peanut easily, as it bore some resemblance to native ingredients like the Bambara groundnut. Like the groundnut, the peanuts were ground into a thick paste, used in soups and stews, roasted, or used for their oil. In countries like Sierra Leone, they were also used in traditional and ceremonial practices, such as being used to make a charm to bring forth bad crops toward an enemy. Peanuts would travel across Central and South America into the Caribbean, and by the 1700s, their presence began to be recorded by colonists in places like Jamaica. In Haiti, peanuts became an important crop, illustrated in dishes like mamba, the nation’s version of peanut butter. “[It’s] a filling but spicy spread, traditionally made with just roasted peanuts, scotch bonnet peppers, oil, and a little sugar and salt in a mortar and pestle, or pilon,” says holistic herbalist and researcher Rebecca Fils-Aime.“The peanut-based sweet dishes represent community and hospitality, since it is commonly shared among family and friends.”
Although there is no specific historical date to mark when peanuts were brought to the United States, evidence shows that peanuts were grown in the gardens of enslaved Africans. After the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery in the Americas, the peanut became an inexpensive snack. By the early 1900s, agriculturist George Washington Carver was making scientific strides in agriculture using legumes, including the peanut. Carver would prove that peanuts were a low-maintenance crop that would improve soil by fixing nitrogen, and help showcase their high nutritional value.
When American peanut farmers realized they were being undercut by cheaper Chinese imports of peanuts, Carver’s work to popularize peanuts would help pass legislation and a tariff that protected them. This made imported peanuts more expensive, so American-grown peanuts became more competitive in the U.S. market. As a result, domestic peanut farmers had an easier time selling their crops, and many saw higher prices and more profits. This helped Carter gain widespread support and accolades from Black and white leaders around the world. His team at Iowa University would go on to create hundreds of industrial and culinary applications for the ingredients. In his most popular “bulletin,” 1916’s “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption,” Carver tells the reader — everyone from “a commercial peanut farmer to the housewife” —- how to grow and harvest peanuts, how to utilize them for soil health, and how to prepare the peanuts to be sold at market. He then wrote 105 recipes compiled from various sources using peanuts, with recipes like peanut soup, cakes and bread, and even mock meats, like chicken, veal, and sausages, and more. Many of his recipes and applications for peanuts are still used today.
Today, chefs, caterers, culinarians, and historians are working to keep historical recipes alive while innovating their own, and those stories are often shared in some of the country’s most inventive Black restaurants and culinary spaces. Chef and high school culinary instructor Jamie Barnes based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has roots in Virginia, and remembers several peanut dishes, including Virginia peanut soup, “which is a direct but perhaps more bland version of groundnut soup and mafe.” But Barnes adds candied country ham, fried collards, okra, and even peanut granola to his soups, adding his own flair when he can.
At Lasgidi Cafe in Phoenix, Arizona, Patience Ogunbanjo celebrates the diversity of the peanut through a menu that blends traditional ingredients and dishes with new interpretations. “Our sizzling suya tacos, featuring carne asada or chicken thighs rubbed in a bold suya spice blend highlight the smoky, nutty depth that peanuts bring to grilled meats — known across West Africa,” she says. “Across the African American culinary tradition, peanuts have continued to thrive in dishes like boiled peanuts and peanut butter-based stews, carrying the legacy of West African flavors into new cultural expressions. Peanuts are more than just an ingredient — they’re a bridge between history, heritage, and the shared flavors of the diaspora.”
Ghanaian chef Nana Wilmont of LoveThatIKnead supper club and Georgina’s Foods is reminded daily of the importance of the peanut. “Seeing crops like groundnuts, black eye peas, and okra move across the African diaspora shows the undeniable resilience of a people, recreating these culinary traditions and foodways no matter the circumstance.” The influence of the nutty legume is worldwide, but it has found a special place in the hearts and homes of Black cuisine.
