As March is celebrated as National Peanut Month, we take this space to extol the versatile and delicious legume. It is believed that the peanut originated in Peru or Brazil, South America. The Incas of Peru used peanuts for sacrificial offerings and people in South America made pottery in the shape of the peanut as far back as 3,500 years. Peanuts were grown as far north as Mexico when the Spanish began their exploration of the New World. The explorers took peanuts back to Spain and from there trader explorers spread them from Asia to Africa. Africans were the first people to introduce peanuts to North America around the 1700s. Not until the early 1800s were peanuts grown as a commercial crop here. Peanuts were first grown in Virginia and at first were considered food for livestock, too difficult to grow and harvest. However, peanut production began to grow. After the Civil War Union soldiers had had come to like these legumes and took them home. Both armies subsisted on this high-prot...