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Big-city journalists discover peanuts don't
grow on trees
By Bill Whitaker
With so many bigger-than-life misconceptions about Texas, it's
always fun when out-of-state journalists come calling.
Take, for example, the tour undertaken last week by big-league
journalists through Texas' peanut country, including Gorman and
De Leon. The so-called "Peanut Harvest Tour" sought
to better-acquaint writers from such publications as Family Circle
and Woman's World with the ever-wondrous peanut.
"Of course, they really don't know enough about peanuts
to have any misconceptions," Texas Peanut Producers Board
executive director Mary Webb told me during a welcoming reception
for the journalists. "I mean, some think peanuts grow on
trees."
At first, I thought Mary was just kidding, but the journalists
themselves soon made it clear she wasn't.
"I have to confess that, till today, I didn't know peanuts
grew underground," hearty, 26-year-old Family Circle food
writer Jonna Gallo told me. "I mean, when you live in New
York, Planters grows 'em and they come out salted and honey-roasted!"
At least Chris O'Connell, food editor of Weight Watchers Magazine,
had a less nutty idea about this lowly member of the bean family:
"I didn't know the peanut was grown underground. I guess
till this tour I never really thought about it.
"I just figured they grew on a vine or something."
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Tommy and Patricia Butler of De Leon hosted the food writers
during their first night in Texas, providing barbecue, some authentic
Texas fiddle music and even a demonstration of C&W dancing.
Of the latter, only rainfall precluded the out-of-towners from
making bigger fools of themselves than they did.
Most of the writers said this was probably the most unusual
tour they had ever gone on, though Jonna did say she also found
a visit to a "chocolate museum" in Hershey Park pretty
offbeat, "though that wasn't as amazing as learning peanuts
grow underground!"
Needless to say, most of these magazine writers admit to being
pretty good cooks. For instance, Jonna, who is unmarried, says
she can never wait to try new recipes she's come upon in the course
of her work at Family Circle, and that she's always inviting people
over as guinea pigs.
"I'm very popular," she joked.
During dinner, I asked Jonna if there was one hard and fast
rule she had learned about cooking.
"Measure everything accurately," she said. "A
little bit of this and a little bit of that is not good advice
for someone who is not a seasoned veteran."
Before the food writers left Texas, they were presented, as
something between an honor and a joke, a certificate making them
honorary citizens of the "Empire of Texas." This left
several journalists from Mexico highly amused.
Jonna Gallo said she was tickled with the honor, though she
admitted she wasn't sure how fast she'd be able to stick it up
in her New York office.
"In New York, you have to call someone from the union,"
she explained. "Then, four days later, someone shows up with
a hammer and a nail and you get a bill for $65!"
FESSING UP
Too bad organizers of the Bobby Estes Cowboy Gathering a week
and a half ago couldn't have lured former actor Fess Parker to
Baird. As it was, the gathering successfully brought to town several
former rodeo performers who traveled with Bobby's famous Wild
West show through France in 1956. During the reunion, Bobby recalled
how Fess Parker showed up at the Paris rodeo one night, asking
to make a trophy presentation.
Parker was then traveling worldwide, publicizing a film based
on his memorable portrayal of frontiersman and Alamo-defender
Davy Crockett. Parker hoped the French would take to the rustic
American hero with the coonskin cap the way Americans were.
"He was a nice guy," Bobby recalled of Parker, a
former Abilenian whose lanky frame once stretched across Hardin-Simmons
University. "Of course, they had to change his first name
a bit. Fess is a dirty word over there."
One authority on the French language suggests fesse means buttocks,
but Bobby is sure it was worse than that.
Bill Whitaker, who wonders if his name means anything dirty
in French, can be reached at 676-6732. E-mail him at WTWARN@aol.com.
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1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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