In a search for a better peanut experience I ordered a five-pound box of roasted-in-the-shell Virginias from Whitley's of that state. While not the Class-A-plus peanuts that you could get at Candlestick Park at a San Francisco Giants game in 1970, they were still pretty good -- very few inedibles and most of the meats on the creamy side of white and not over-roasted, so as to preserve the sweet, nutty peanut/legume flavor.
Encouraged, I ordered a four-pound bag of same from the folks at Nuts.com, who certainly have fun with their packaging. I was quickly disappointed. While relatively uniform externally, the sweetness had been heated right out of these peanuts, leaving the over-roasted meats dark and on the bitter side of the spectrum. You could smell it when you opened the bag. I could not feed these peanuts to monkeys or elephants in good conscience.
Then out of the blue, a large package arrived. My swell and compassionate Cousin Brent had sent two three-pound bags, one roasted, one roasted and salted, from the Giant grocery store chain serving his neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland.
The roasted peanuts were very close competitors with the Whitley's -- minimal inedibles, not over-roasted. A quality peanut for snacking. The same proved to be the case with the salted-in-shell nuts. Alhough darker, this seems to be a trait of salted peanuts, and these were not over-roasted either -- still mostly on the sweet side.
In contrast, the salted in the shells from Hampton Farms that prompted my search were both darker and more bitter -- mostly just disappointing. And after you eat a handful, not are you only disappointed in the nuts, you are disappointed in yourself for buying the darned things and adding to your salt intake for no particular gain.
Just for the sake of bad science, I weighed 2.3 ounces of each sample randomly grabbed from each bag, counted the peanuts and weighed the shelled meats.
Whitleys came in at 27 peanuts in 2.3 ounces, and a net of 1.5 ounces shelled.
Nuts.com came in at 25 peanuts and a net of 1.8 ounces of meats.
Giant brand roasted came in at 30 peanuts in 2.3 ounces and a 1.8-ounce net yield.
Giant roasted and salted were bulkiest, at 22 in 2.3 ounces and a smaller yield of 1.4 ounces of meats.
The Hampton Farms nuts came in a 28 peanuts in 2.3 ounces and 1.6 ounces net.
My subjective grades:
Whitley's, A-minus;
Nuts.com, C-minus/D-plus;
Giant roasted, A-minus-minus;
Giant salted, B-plus;
Hampton Farm salted, D-plus.
These results are of course meaningless and will not appear in any peer-reviewed journal no matter how disreputable. You may freely copy, steal, print out and burn or do otherwise with them.
On the bright side I give your review an A+, with the caveat that I'm an unwashed heathen who buys roasted peanuts from Walmart.
