
Peanut Butter

GK: As part of our continuing series celebrating Black History Month we look at the achievements of George Washington Carver.
AN: Born in 1864 in Mississippi, George Washington Carver turned his boyhood passion of horticulture into a lifetime of scientific advances. Looking to improve the lot of African-American farmers in the South, he sought out new "cash crops," plants which would grow better and even help restore the soil, depleted from generations of cotton growing. One of those crops would be the lowly peanut. But it was not merely a matter of raising the crop, but making sure that the crops had a practical use, a market to supply. So Carver began the long process of developing uses for the peanut.
FR: Hi, George. What are you doing?
GC: I've been working on this new product; crushing peanuts into this---
FR: What is it?
GC: I call it peanut juice.
FR: It's a kind of lumpy and thick to be juice, isn't it?
GC: It's a working name.
FR: What can you do with it?
GC: I was using it as a salve on these bruises I got.
FR: Those are pretty bad bruises. How'd you get them?
GC: From the peanut juicer. It's very unwieldy.
FR: Did the salve make the bruises any better?
GC: No, not really. I was experimenting with it as an ointment, for my eyes.
FR: Any success?
GC: My eyelids kept sticking to the roof of my eyes. Or how about this, I've used the crushed peanuts to hold these two bricks together. I think it could be a type of mortar.
FR: Peanut mortar.
GC: It holds pretty well, but it attracts squirrels. I've also been spreading it on my nose.
FR: Why?
GC: Sunscreen.
FR: How's that work?
GC: Very good, but I still have the same squirrel problem.
FR: Oh, you spilled some on that cracker. I'll get it. Hm, smells good.
(eats)
FR: It's tasty, too. Try some.
GC: Hm. That is pretty good.
FR: You could sell it as food.
GC: Yeah. I could call it Peanut Mulch.
FR: That doesn't sound very appetizing.
GC: Peanut Jam? Peanut Mush?
FR: I don't think so.
GC: I'll have to call by friend Dave Butter about it. He's really good at naming things.
TK: Thank you, Mr. Carver, for Peanut Mush and so much more. Tune in next time, when we hear George Washington Carver say:
GC: I don't know why I'm knocking myself out trying to get the lumps of out this stuff, people seem to like it with chunks in it!
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