Will Thistle carefully describes himself as an atheist. But at Sissle & Daughters, a line of modest glass jars lined up on shelves at Cheesemongers and Grocery stores owned in Portland, Maine’s Bayside neighborhood. The light reflected from the tightly screwed gold lid creates an angel-like halo on a neatly sewn label that reads “peanuts created by the Peanut Crew of the First United Methodist Church.”
“It’s one food item we sell. When he first introduced the product in 2020, a friend approached him and asked him about his new relationship with Christ. But it wasn’t a call to God that drew sis into a swollen golden jar. The peanuts he found are just that good.
Ten times a year, 25 members of the first United Methodist Church in Mount Olive, North Carolina gather in the church’s kitchen. Football dads, who cover short cargoes, wear neat black aprons, while silver-haired retirees slip into plastic foodservice gloves and start working on a massive amount of blister fusion peanuts.
Like the congregation itself, the process by which peanuts from the Mount of Olives is humble. The plump shelled legumes fed from nearby Enfield are blanched in water and fry in hot peanut oil while wet, making the nuts ferocious and bruised, with an almost volcanic look, carbonated, foamy and nutty atmosphere. Finally, the burned nut is tossed with plenty of salt and the process is repeated.
It’s saltier than the average planter’s peanuts, and nuts are four simple ingredients, and the peanut variety in the mass market on grocery shelves makes it a snack experience where you can’t find Sissle. “The texture is different, it’s crunch, smell, feel. Everything about them stands out. If you’re used to trying real food, you notice the difference.”
All dollars made from the sale of peanuts will be donated to the community surrounding the Mount of Olives. Whether it’s a scholarship fund, it doesn’t matter to families who need medical assistance. What began as a small fundraiser in 1965 has always served the same charity purpose, and continues for generations, raising over $100,000 each year.
English Bernhard looks forward to the familiar sight of the salt-lined jars of the Peanut Mountain Peanuts at the Olive Church, which decorates the pantry of his childhood home. A New York transplant was raised in Raleigh, she remembers that jars of peanuts from a mountain olive church always have a place in the family’s kitchen. When I spoke to Bernhard, she was delighted to hear that Peanuts had such a cult in other parts of the country.
To her, they represent aspects of Southern cuisine that are difficult to come outside of Appalachia. “When I go to restaurants in the southern part of New York, it’s all chicken and waffles. But I grew up with butter beans and collards. These peanuts feel like one of these (tradition).”
It is not a calling to God who painted sis in a swollen golden jar. The peanuts he found are just that good.
Blister Fried Church’s golden jar of peanuts stocked North Carolina kitchen cabinets and Christmas stockings since its first moon landing, but when it was featured in blue smoke at early Manhattan’s Augs, it discovered that Danny Meyer’s now-sharpened BBQ joints, sold along with barbecue sauce and baseball caps, came into being. Now they are favorites at butchers and specialty grocery stores across the country. This is a deadly divine salt bomb with spots on cheese boards from Provincetown to Palo Alto.
Brooklyn-based Animal Butcher Shop The Meat Hook has been a special attendee at Mount Olive Church Peanuts for over a decade, long before Breezy Sandoval’s Tenure, grocery manager at Williamsburg Shop. “They’re really, really good. It’s spreading through word of mouth,” says Sandoval. He orders 10 cases every two months, and orders more cases in November to meet holiday demand and continue in the New Year, when the congregations cease production due to much needed breaks. The same story is at the Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, New York.
“About 30 minutes ago I said, ‘I’m sending my wife to hand her to pick up some cheese, but make sure I pick up two jars of peanuts from the church,” recalls owner Michael Apatato. He was introduced five years ago to Mount Peanuts at Olive Church, where he raves about their peculiarity and is introduced like a regular who brought a bottle to sample. Since introducing them, they have become favorites in shops that have a customer base made up of many European ports. Peanuts with a modest jar and shy white label stand out for this reason.
“It’s like a famous proverb. The packaging may be fanciful and the quality inside may be low,” suggests Affatato. It is an emotion that reflects thistle’s.
“It sticks out like a pleasant thumb,” says Thistle of the bottle. “I love products that don’t necessarily have sophisticated packaging but are not creative. It’s very easy, especially in the food world where there are lots of cute brands, but most of the substances may be in the packaging.”
Eye-catching branding may be low on Sissle’s list of priorities when he brings in new products, but a very high place is integrity in the hands of people who make it.
“I hope that when we use every product we have in our store it will come from a good person and allow us to tell stories,” he says. “We live in an increasingly complex society, so we want to make sure we showcase the traditional values of food and agricultural care, whatever we sell.”
Last summer, I first visited Sissle & Daughters and neatly stacked mountain Olive Church peanuts in a register across from a cheese case filled with cheddar, breeze and gouda. The customer hastily reached for the bottle in front of me, then two more. I watered my mouth and broke the 10th commandment. I longed for my neighbor’s merchandise and took two jars home for myself.
