Found a Peanut in Sussex County

BY KATHERINE CALOS - Staff Writer
Published: July 22, 2008

Within a three-mile stretch of U.S. 460 in Sussex County, peanuts are king.

Drive through the town of Wakefield and you’ll see not one, not two, not three, but four stores that roast and sell the great Virginia goobers.

All four are near the spot where Dr. Matthew Harris is credited with growing the first commercial crop of peanuts in the United States. A state highway marker notes that Harris planted a peanut field near Waverly and Wakefield in the 1830s and sold his first peanuts in 1842 on the streets of Petersburg.

Adams’ Peanuts & Country Store is within a mile of Harris’ farm site as you approach Wakefield. Plantation Peanuts and the Virginia Diner face one another in Wakefield. Just as you leave town, the Wakefield Peanut Company gives you a last chance to indulge. 

Gobs of Goobers

Each offers samples of peanuts in a variety of delectable forms: salted or unsalted; honey roasted or butter toasted; spiced Cajun-style; chocolate-covered; in peanut brittle or in squares of chocolate-covered peanut brittle; in trail mix; raw in the shell; or salted and roasted in the shell.

A friend and I snacked our way from one end of the peanut patch to the other, stopping midway at the Virginia Diner for a lunch of ham biscuits, Brunswick stew and peanut pie. Stuffed as we were, we didn’t think we’d be the best judges of which peanuts packed the biggest punch. So, we brought back samples for an unofficial taste test. The verdict of our 14 testers (we kept adding people until we ran out of samples): you couldn’t go wrong with any of them.

Your own favorite place to shop may come down to ambience.

Adams’ evokes an old country store. Country hams at the entry waft an unmistakable aroma, reinforced by sides of bacon hanging on the back wall. Peanuts have been a family tradition since Alcidees Adams grew them on his farm in 1928, according to the company Web site. In 1961, son Calvin Adams began roasting peanuts in the country store.

Wakefield Peanuts has a factory feel, and the factory is just behind the store. Possibly because it was the first place we stopped and we were still feeling peanut-deprived, we made it an immediate favorite.

“We have a select group of farms that grow peanuts for us,” said Sue Laine, who runs the plant with her husband, Jimmy. “What’s different about our peanuts [is] we know exactly where they come from. We have the lot number.”

Plantation Peanuts feels more polished, as if Southern Living had stopped by for a design consultation. 

Landmark Diner

Virginia Diner’s peanuts have to compete with the food. Menu items marked with a peanut are local favorites, among them Southern fried chicken and country ham biscuits.

The diner has been a local landmark since it started in 1929 in a refurbished railroad dining car. The original car is long gone, but as the restaurant has expanded over the years, it’s kept a little dining-car-shaped wing to recall its roots.

For more about peanuts and their history, make time for the First Peanut Museum in U.S.A. at Waverly. It’s part of the Miles B. Carpenter Museum complex, which commemorates a folk artist who started carving wood when his sawmill’s business was slow. He gained national attention in the 1970s, earning visits with two Virginia governors and President Ronald Reagan.

The peanut museum was a way to answer visitors’ questions, said Shirley S. Yancey, who operates the museum complex.

“We had people coming through who didn’t know anything about peanuts,” she said. “They wanted to know about our peanut trees.” She had to tell them that peanuts grow on a vine and the nuts develop underground.

In 1890, you’ll learn, a third of Sussex County was tilled, and 27 percent of that acreage was planted in peanuts. Virginia peanuts still have a big place in the county’s heart.

If you have any doubt, just visit Wakefield.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO SUSSEX COUNTY

Details: Miles B. Carpenter Museum and First Peanut Museum in USA: (804) 834-3327 or (804) 834-2151. Hours are 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

Four places to buy peanuts in Wakefield

Adams’ Peanuts & Country Store
9243 General Mahone Highway
Waverly, VA 23890
Phone: (757) 899-8651
http://www.adamspeanuts.com
Cost: for 22-ounce tin, $8.25 plus shipping of $6.15 for total of $14.40; for 5 tins, $41.25 plus $9.75 shipping for total of $51

Plantation Peanuts of Wakefield
U.S. Route 460 (across from Virginia Diner) Wakefield, VA 23888 (800) 233-8788
http://www.plantationpeanuts.com
Cost: for 22-ounce tin, $8.25 plus $5.95 shipping for total of $14.20; for 5 tins, $41.25 plus $9.75 shipping for total of $51

Virginia Diner
408 County Drive (U.S. Route 460)
Wakefield, VA 23888 Phone: (888) 823-4637
http://www.vadiner.com
Cost: for 20-ounce tin, $10.50 plus $4.85 shipping for total of $15.35; for 5 tins, $52.50 plus $7.65 shipping for total of $57.15

Wakefield Peanut Co.
11253 General Mahone Highway (Route 460)
Wakefield, Virginia 23888
Phone: (800) 803-1309
http://www.wakefieldpeanutco.com
Cost: for 22-ounce tin, $8.25 plus $9.12 shipping for total of $17.37; for 5 tins, it’s $41.25 plus $10.87 shipping for total of $52.12

Peanut taste test

For our taste test, we got the smallest sample we could find at each store: 4-ounce packs from Plantation and Wakefield, a 2-oz. bag at Adams and even smaller sample packets from Virginia Diner. Because of the variables, there’s nothing scientific about this test. If your favorite peanut didn’t fare well, don’t give up on it – but maybe there’s room for more than one favorite.

Our 14 testers rated the peanuts on appearance, freshness, flavor, saltiness and crunchiness. Then they voted for which one they’d buy. A majority of those votes went to Wakefield. As one tester explained, “It has the best overall salt-to-nut ratio and has a fresh crunch.”

Winners in the categories of
Appearance: Wakefield
Freshness: Wakefield and Plantation (tie)
Peanut taste: Wakefield
Saltiest: Wakefield
Crunchiest: Plantation