Cameroon is Nuts 4 Nuts.
Also, we have a giveaway winner!
I am finally back from a covid imposed hiatus. Brain fog + incoherence are not so great for writing and trying to formulate sentences 🥴. This newsletter will be short + sweet, but I promise our next country in the Eating A-Z in NYC series, which is Canada, will be packing a punch!
If you live in New York City you will most likely have eaten roasted street nuts at one point in your life. Just like the hotdog and pretzel carts that still can be found on street corners, you will also find a person with sweaty brows furiously stirring piping hot sugar in a wok with nuts. These iconic carts are called Nuts 4 Nuts and have been around forever. You can smell the crunchy sweet confections blocks away.
I bring this up because in my search for a Cameroonian dish to recreate for this week’s newsletter I stumbled upon a recipe for Groundnut Sweet aka Sugar Peanuts, which flooded me with memories of eating hot roasted peanuts as a kid. Groundnut Sweet is a national snack that is made similar to the Nuts 4 Nuts carts here at home. Vendors stand on the street with rustic woks on open flames serving the snack to folks on the go.
The West African country of Cameroon is a diverse melting pot of peoples, landscapes, and cultures. There are over 200 ethnic groups that live in the country and over 250 languages spoken. The country's landscape varies from lush rainforests to arid deserts to extremely wet jungles to vast prairie land. Since Cameroon has such a unique make up its cuisine tends to pull from different corners of the country. I found some interesting recipes that had super specific ingredients that I don’t even think I could properly source in New York so sugared peanuts were going to be the easiest way to check this country off my list. I knew I wanted to ease back into writing and recipe testing so why not do it with a sweet snack that will 100% be devoured within seconds of being made?!
Groundnut Sweet
2 cups of unsalted peanutsÂ
1 cup of sugar
â…” cup of water
1 teaspoon of cinnamonÂ
In a large skillet over medium heat cook sugar, cinnamon, and water until the syrup starts to come to a boil.
Toss peanuts into the syrup and continuously stir until all the liquid has evaporated and all that is left is crystalized sugar on the peanuts.
Stirring requires patience because you will feel like the water isn’t going anywhere for a while and that all your stirring isn’t doing much. Stick to the stirring and I promise after 10-12 minutes your peanuts will start to dry out.
Once completely dried in the skillet let them cool down on a parchment-lined baking sheet OR you can be like me and burn your mouth while you stuff fist fulls of hot peanuts right out of the skillet. Totally up to you!
We have a winner for the Snack Pack! (It seems like I mentioned this giveaway 20 years ago, but here we are!)
Andrew Janjigian* you are the winner of the Snack Pack! I will be emailing you shortly with details of how to get this awesomeness to you.
Cook. Eat. Repeat.
Natalie 💗✨
Luv your illustration! Who did it?
What an amazing snapshot of a NYC cultural phenomenon and a peak into Cameroonian culture! Thank you and glad you're feeling a bit better!