PELION, S.C. — We all know the peanut is a staple crop here in South Carolina. According to the USDA, last year peanut production brought in $61.5 million.
"Well everybody eats peanuts!," Steve Neese, peanut boiling volunteer said.
These brown, salty and round snacks are familiar to people who live in the south, and especially so in Pelion.
"I was actually born the year that it was founded. In 1981 I was told that there was a conversation in the little DF Shumpert's grocery store that they wanted to have a festival. So we're primarily a farming town, so I guess peanuts is where that came from. So in 1982 we had the first South Carolina Pelion Peanut Party," said Amy McDonald, Pelion Peanut Party chairman.
It's happening this weekend for everyone in the Midlands to enjoy - specifically boiled peanuts.
The first step of boiling the peanuts is letting them sit in hot boiling water for about three hours. The second step is soaking the peanuts in salt water for about an hour. Then you have to drain the peanuts and they're served in a 20-ounce cup.
America's favorite snack is grown primarily in what's called the peanut belt, up from Texas through the Virginia/Carolina region.
"Peanuts have been a crop that has helped a lot of farmers be able to be profitable when other crops were maybe less profitable and so it's very much appreciated in the state, we're glad to work with it," said Dan Anco, Clemson Extension peanut specialist.
Anco tells News 19 unlike other nuts, peanuts are grown close to and in the ground.
"It grows as a low lying plant on the ground and then it'll flower above the ground and then those will turn into these little pegs and then they'll kind of punch through the ground and then it'll swell and form a pod," Anco said.
Already, thousands of South Carolinians have started to munch on this salty snack at the Pelion Peanut Party.
According to the Clemson Extension, peanuts have fluctuated in price from 17 to 40 cents per pound over the past 30 plus years.