Mr. Hieronymus Hogg of the American Goober Council came to visit today, in a proper tizzy, as would be expected, given recent events. There’s just no doubt about it – the last two or three years have not been good ones for the noble peanut, Arachis hypogaea, that sturdy, magnanimous and nutritious legume, which has, for centuries, like that equally remarkable Solanaceae, the potato, delighted man and beast alike with its unique, if somewhat bland and earthy taste. Not that I’m much of a jack nut aficionado myself. But I do relish its flavor occasionally, such as when, sweetened slightly, it is placed in contrast with a strong, dark chocolate. And once in a while I use the old pinda as part of an Asian stir-fry dish, accompanied by water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, ginger and the like. And granted, many drinkers know the monkey nut as their cocktail companion – a sort of grudgingly welcomed social climber, chumming around in the snack mix, pretending to be a real nut, like a candied pecan or a smoked almond; but not doing a very convincing job of it, as would any self-respecting cashew, which, of course, isn’t really a nut either, but at least it presents a much more convincing masquerade. Furthermore, I am sure that baseball fans will howl like rooters for the home team robbed by a blind umpire if I don’t tip my hat to them. Great lovers of those cockernuts are they, and perhaps the most sincere, partaking, as they do, of them al fresco and still in their hulls, shucked and chewed down by the hand full, awash with copious cold beer to consummate the great plebeian pleasure of a summer afternoon participating in our beloved National Pastime. But really, as we all know, it’s King Peanut Butter who rules, undisputed, the peanut realms of our hearts and minds. Who among us has experienced a childhood devoid of sandwiches made with that gooey, sticky, flavorful and oddly satisfying stuff? Whose plump and cherubic young face was not literally made from its soft, kinetic fats; who has not broken bones constructed from its minerals while falling from ambitiously high backyard tree houses or upon the unforgiving tarmac of city playgrounds; who has not exuberantly stretched young muscles constructed from its plentiful and complete protein during a thousand elementary school recesses? My Mom used chunky style, and paired it with thick, luscious fruit preserves instead of jelly. Served on lightly toasted slabs of substantial whole wheat with thin slices of fresh apple, that peanut butter went to its reward with typical Martini family panache – being a native Italian, albeit from the North, Mom would never have served smooth peanut butter with grape jelly on white bread. And my Dad, who has spent the last half of his mortal existence fleeing the suburban middle class life style my immigrant grandfather from Naples had pursued with an equal and opposite passion, would never have let her feed such a thing to his children.
Yes, a true mental fugue, composed of lost memories, forgotten associations and unwarranted nostalgia flooded through the back of my mind at the mention of peanuts, and if something similar does not happen to you, Dear Reader, when you hear about peanuts, then I suspect you’re probably not an American. Because peanuts are an integral part of the American identity. They are the common sustenance of our childhood, the great equalizer of our society and the historical manna of our pioneer forbearers. Peanuts are more American, even, than Midwestern sweet corn on the cob, New York Yankee pot roast, Thanksgiving turkey, Texas chili, Carolina barbecue, California oranges, Boston cod, Minnesota hot dish, Alaskan salmon or Kentucky fried chicken; more American, in fact, than hamburgers – or even hot dogs, for that matter. Hence the rictus of consternation on Hogg’s face as he took a seat in my office this morning.
“Mr. Collins,” he wailed, “it’s a sad day for the American peanut industry. There’s negative media coverage everywhere you look, people are calling, texting and sending e-mails to us in record numbers, politicians are taking cheap shots at us from every direction and, on top of all that, the new Obama Administration’s USDA has just removed Stewart Parnell from the Peanut Standards Board!”
“Probably,” I speculated, “in retaliation for his refusal to answer questions at yesterday’s Congressional hearings.”
Hogg sat up straight, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “There was nothing illegal about that.”
“Certainly not,” I acknowledged. “Now, let’s see… yes, here it is. When asked to respond to the committee’s questions, Mr. Parnell said, and I quote, ‘On the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your questions based on the protection afforded me under the United States Constitution.’”
Hogg glanced nervously out the window at the White House while drumming the fingers of his right hand on his left elbow. “Yes, that’s what Mr. Parnell said. So what?”
“Let’s not kid each other,” I advised. “Your Mr. Parnell took the Fifth Amendment.”
Hogg shrugged. “That’s his Constitutional right.”
“Correct,” I agreed. “Mr. Parnell has a Constitutional right not to be forced to testify about himself under oath if doing so would incriminate him. He does not, however, have a Constitutional right to membership on the United States Department of Agriculture Peanut Standards Board.”
“No,” Hogg sighed, obviously dejected, “I don’t suppose he does.”
“Meanwhile,” I pointed out, “the victims of salmonella-tainted peanut products, and, in some cases, the surviving members of their families, had no problem telling Congress precisely what they had on their minds. With all that extreme unanswered accusation, with all those unmitigated horror stories, with such accounts of undeserved suffering and death, striking like a plague of vipers concealed in snacks, sandwiches and confections, Mr. Hogg – how could the peanut industry possibly expect any other reaction from the public?”
“Sensationalism,” Hogg grunted, “that’s all it is. Reporters filling up space in their newspapers, filling up air time, filling up their damn blogs, chattering like a tree full of magpies. It’s all noise. There’s no story there.”
“Really?” I threw Hogg a mildly skeptical look. “Mr. Parnell’s e-mails seem to indicate differently.”
“E-mails,” Hogg roared, suddenly livid, “those [expletive] things! How many times did I warn our membership’s executives not to send e-mails? And did they listen? No!”
“Excuse me for asking,” I carefully inquired, “but exactly how did you send your membership’s executives that warning?”
“Why, by e-mail, of course,” Hogg harrumphed. “Do you have any idea the flak I’d have to put up with from the membership if I spent a couple of grand having my staff prepare and mail letters to all of them, using AGC letterhead and preprinted envelopes? Not to mention all that first-class postage! I can hear them now – ‘Is this what you call an effective use of our membership fees?’ ‘Haven’t you got more productive things for your staff to do besides this kind of busy work?’ ‘It has come to my attention that your office has spent a hundred dollars of my association dues sending letters that belabor the obvious to my entire management staff.’ Stuff like that,” he snorted, “is exactly what I would have gotten, make no mistake about it!”
“So what is it,” I continued, “about bosses in the peanut business? What makes them such miserly penny-pinchers?”
“Because, Mr. Collins,” Hogg explained, slightly exasperated, “peanuts are a cheap industry. Why do you think people use the phrase ‘working for peanuts?’ Because peanuts are a cheap business, that’s why! And it’s a cheap business because peanuts are cheap, and consequently, peanut businessmen are cheap! Don’t you remember what a cheapskate Jimmy Carter was?”
“Come to think of it,” I admitted, “you’re right about that. He’s always been a total tightwad.”
“Exactly,” Hogg declared, stabbing his finger at me for emphasis, “and it isn’t because he was an engineer in the nuclear Navy, now is it? No! It’s because Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, that’s why! Peanut men are so cheap, they eat beans to save money on bubble baths! So cheap, they won’t tip in a God-damn canoe! So cheap, they use both sides of the toilet paper! So cheap, they go to supermarkets at noon to have lunch on the free samples! So cheap, they eat cornflakes with a fork to save on milk! So cheap, their [expletive] Zip Codes are [expletive] fractions!”
“It sounds,” I speculated, “like you might be venting.”
“Venting?” Hogg drew himself up short. “Yeah,” he muttered, “I guess I was. Working for a trade association composed entirely of skinflints isn’t easy, you know.”
“I can’t imagine it would be,” I assured him. “You have my heartfelt sympathy.”
“Thanks,” Hogg replied, a bit dejected, no doubt from the very thought of working for the AGC. “It does get to me sometimes.”
“In any event,” I reminded him, “whatever the reason, Mr. Parnell’s e-mails are some real Doozies. And one needn’t be a forensic genius to figure out what was going on, either. Here, on one hand, was a laboratory reporting salmonella contamination in a lot of peanuts, and there, on the other, was Mr. Parnell, shopping around for another laboratory that would provide him with test results that say the peanuts were uncontaminated.”
“Yeah,” Hogg grumbled, “I’ve seen Parnell’s e-mails.”
“Well, then, my goodness gracious, sir,” I pressed him, “isn’t such behavior somewhat… ah, dishonest and reprehensible?”
“See here, Collins,” Hogg insisted, “those laboratories are full of nerds in white coats with Petri dishes and microscopes and stuff like that. They were the kids who never got a date in high school, you know? Now they have the power of life and death over hundreds of tons of peanuts! Some of them just simply get carried away and overdo it, that’s all.”
“Not in the case in question, unfortunately,” I gamely volleyed back. “Miserable, 40-year-old virgin geeks those lab rats may very well be; but they were right! The shipment did indeed contain dangerous levels of salmonella, which ended up poisoning over six hundred hapless citizens of our great Republic in thirty-nine states, and resulted in the recall of a bewildering plethora of products – cookies, candies, brownies, cake mixes, toppings, ice cream, snack bars, and, yes, even that very staple of the all-American kid’s diet – peanut butter. And so, the other laboratory, which failed to find that deadly contamination, is obviously staffed either by utter incompetents or miscreants who were willing to falsify their results in order to cultivate Mr. Parnell’s continued business. But the e-mail trail doesn’t stop there – oh, no, it goes on to demonstrate that after engaging in some creative lab-shopping, Mr. Parnell ordered immediate shipment of those tainted peanuts, even before his stooges had issued him their bogus certification of purity!”
“Allegedly, Mr. Collins,” Hogg interjected in a self-righteous tone, “and, at this point in time, only allegedly.”
“Quite correct,” I responded. “All allegedly, and only allegedly, at the moment. For all we know, Mr. Parnell could, in fact, be completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
“Yes, indeed,” Hogg nodded with an air of obvious satisfaction, “for all we know, Mr. Parnell could be a proverbial choir boy.”
“Just so,” I concurred. “But tell me, sir, since you no doubt know a thing or two about the peanut industry – in order to prevent just such an unpleasant situation as the one now confronting us, why don’t people like Mr. Parnell roast or pasteurize their peanuts at a temperature sufficient to kill all potentially harmful organisms before they ship them out to their customers?”
Hogg leaned forward, scowling. “Didn’t I just get through telling you peanuts are a cheap business? Sure, there are ways to treat them for germs and such, but all of them require heat – and do you know what natural gas costs these days? Or how much of it you have to burn in order to get back completely clear lab results on a hundred thousand tons of [expletive] peanuts?”
“So,” I concluded, “it’s not economically feasible for people like Mr. Parnell to expend the funds necessary to ensure perfectly wholesome peanuts?”
“Nothing’s perfect,” Hogg thundered. “Nothing in this entire world! And how can the public expect completely safe peanuts when every single member of the American Goober Council is getting squeezed from every point of the compass – fuel costs, transportation costs, foreign competition, you name it, Mr. Collins, it’s squeezing the peanut men dry! And that’s the reason,” he elaborated, “that’s why I’m here in your office today, to present you with this monstrous conundrum that confronts my membership, threatening to no less than utterly destroy their businesses and livelihoods, and ask you to help us find a solution!”
“Okay,” I acquiesced, leaning back in my chair, thinking, while Hogg, as is the fashion inside the Beltway these days, diddled with his Blackberry.
“I’ve got it,” I announced, after only about six or seven minutes, which was not bad work, even if I do say so myself.
“What have you got?” Hogg demanded as he put away his Blackberry.
“Raw bars,” I murmured, throwing him a sly wink.
“What about raw bars?” Hogg’s face was a frank topographical map of puzzlement.
“What do they serve?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hogg mused for a moment, “they serve oysters, clams, that sort of thing, don’t they?”
“Food,” I proposed.
“Right,” Hogg nodded.
“Uncooked food,” I ventured.
“Sure, I guess that’s why they call them ‘raw bars,’ isn’t it?” Hogg japed, clearly wishing I would let him off the hook and stop teasing his brain. “So what?”
“Just like peanuts,” I triumphantly pronounced, “people have eaten raw shell fish since the dawn of time. And when, at last, our litigious society got to a point where people were suing seafood restaurants because the food they ate at raw bars made a tiny, miniscule fraction them sick, those establishments did one of two things – they either closed their raw bar; or, they kept it open and posted a notice. You’ve seen it, Mr. Hogg, I’m sure, it says ‘Consuming raw or under-cooked meats, poultry, seafood or eggs may increase your risk of food-borne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions.’ And that, sir, is your solution! Have your member firms make up an analogous warning, print it on a mountain of adhesive-backed labels, and plaster it all over every shipment of peanuts that leaves their loading docks!”
“Raw bar!” Hogg exulted, leaping from his chair. “Raw bar!”
“’Peanuts are a natural, traditional food product,” I proclaimed, “’the consumption of which, like under-cooked meats, poultry…’”
“’…seafood, or eggs,’” Hogg shouted, grinning, raising his right index finger on high with unchecked enthusiasm.
“’…may increase the risk of food-borne illness…’” I added as I stood up next to my desk.
“’…especially for individuals with certain medical conditions!’” Hogg chortled as he gave me a huge, enveloping bear hug. “It’s true what they say, Collins! You’re a [expletive] [expletive] genius, that’s what the [expletive] you are! A warning label, just like that, on every shipment of peanuts, on every peanut product container… Oh, my God…” Hogg’s face suddenly fell. “You don’t think something like that would make people quit consuming them, do you?”
“Of course not,” I chuckled. “Everybody knows, once you start eating peanuts, it’s impossible to stop!”