Nov 17 2022 48 mins
The boll weevil is an insect that survives almost exclusively on cotton plants. It migrated to the American south from Mexico and, upon its arrival in the 1920s, upended the entire nation's agricultural infrastructure. They left destruction in the wake and depleted the region of its most valuable crop within five years of contact. Farms vanished, families starved, and the earth turned brittle and poisoned. Of this economic and environmental disaster, Dominic Reisig, professor of entomology at North Carolina State University, says, "I cannot think of another insect that's displaced so many people, changed the economy of rural America, and was so environmentally injurious that everybody clearly rallied around and said we have to get rid of it." Horrible stuff. So why does a statue dedicated to the boll weevil stand in the town square of Enterprise, Alabama? Well, the way Enterprise sees it, the boll weevil was a wake-up call. It forced the state to rethink things and, thanks to some help from George Washington Carver, find their salvation in growing peanuts. These events bring us to today, where a different but no less significant moment in the peanut's legacy is taking place. Two handsome raconteurs, one a picky eater, the other not, are sitting down to drink wine and break shell. Will the nut on their plates find a place in their hearts, or will they wish the boll weevil had finished the job? The next chapter in the history of American agriculture is here. Boiled peanuts start now!
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