Goes Surprisingly Well With Sauerkraut
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Most people don't realize that peanut brittle was invented for the Nazis. Nothing sinister of course; just a cheap food to pack as rations for the military. Invented by peanut farmer Eli Fraunhofer in 1944, peanut brittle was one of the first economical methods for removing the poison from raw peanuts - one of Germany's most plentiful crops due to the soil's high fluoride content. The Nazis saw the usefulness of such a cheap food source, and their soldiers soon found peanut brittle to account for the majority of their rations. Some of the "special ops" guys were even taught to make the nourishing candy in the field. It was a few of these soldiers who, after the war, brought the recipe to the southern U.S., where, needless to say, it was a smash hit.