Praise the first United Methodist Church Peanut Crew

Will Sissle describes himself, with caution, as an atheist. But at Sissle & Daughters, the cheesemonger and grocery he owns in the Bayside district of Portland, Maine, a row of unassuming glass jars line the shelves. The light reflecting off their tightly screwed gold lids creates an angelic halo that hovers above a neatly stickered label reading “PEANUTS prepared by the FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PEANUT CREW.”

“It’s the one food item we sell that is distinctly from a religious sect,” Sissle admits. When he first introduced the product in 2020, a friend approached him to inquire about his newfound relationship to Christ. But it’s not a calling to God that drew Sissle to the golden-topped jars. The peanuts, he found, are just that good.

Ten times a year, a 25-person crew of congregants from the First United Methodist Church in Mount Olive, North Carolina, gather in the church’s kitchen. Cargo-short-clad soccer dads don neat black aprons, and silver-haired retirees slip into vinyl food service gloves, getting to work producing over a ton of blister-fried peanuts.

Like the congregation itself, the process by which the Mount Olive church peanuts are produced is a humble one. Sourced from nearby Enfield, the plump, shelled legumes are blanched in water, then flash fried in hot peanut oil while still wet, blistering and bruising the nut and leaving it with an almost volcanic exterior, calloused and bubbling, the scent of the peanut oil amplifying the nuts’ flavor tenfold. Finally the scalded nuts are tossed in a generous amount of salt, and the process repeats.

Saltier and nuttier than your average Planters peanut, and with just four simple ingredients, it’s a snacking experience that Sissle doesn’t find in any mass-marketed peanut variety on grocery store shelves. “The texture is different, the crunch, the smell, the feel. Everything about them stands out. When you get accustomed to trying real food, you notice the difference.”

Every dollar made from sales of the peanuts is donated back to the community surrounding Mount Olive, whether it be to a scholarship fund or to a family in need of medical assistance. What began as a small fundraiser in 1965 has continued for generations, always serving the same philanthropic purpose, and raising over $100,000 each year.

English Bernhardt looks forward to the familiar sight of the salt-lined jar of Mount Olive church peanuts that graces the pantry of her childhood home. A New York transplant raised in Raleigh, she remembers jars of Mount Olive church peanuts always having a place in her family’s kitchen, often as leftover stocking stuffers from a long-past holiday season. When I spoke with Bernhardt, she was happily surprised to hear that the peanuts had such a cult following in other parts of the country.

To her, they represent a side of Southern cuisine that is hard to come by outside of Appalachia. “When you go to some Southern restaurants in New York, it’s all chicken and waffles. But I grew up on butter beans and collards. These peanuts feel like one of these [traditions] too.”

It’s not a calling to God that drew Sissle to the golden-topped jars. The peanuts, he found, are just that good.

While the golden-topped jars of blister-fried church peanuts have stocked the kitchen cabinets and Christmas stockings of North Carolinians since the first moon landing, they found national recognition in the early aughts in Manhattan when they were featured at Blue Smoke, the now-shuttered barbeque joint from Danny Meyer, sold alongside their barbeque sauces and baseball caps. Now they’re a favorite in butcher shops and specialty food stores nationwide, a salt bomb of lethal divinity spotted on cheese boards from Provincetown to Palo Alto.

At The Meat Hook, a Brooklyn-based whole animal butcher shop, customers have come in specifically for the Mount Olive church peanuts for more than a decade, long before Breezy Sandoval’s tenure, the Williamsburg shop’s grocery manager. “They’re just really, really good. It spreads by word of mouth,” says Sandoval. He orders ten cases every two months, and even more in November, to meet holiday demand and to last into the new year, when the congregation halts production for a much-needed break. At the Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, New York, it’s a similar story.

“About thirty minutes ago, a guy called up and said, ‘I’m sending my wife to pick up some cheeses … but make sure she picks up two jars of church peanuts,’” recalls owner Michael Affatato. He was introduced to the Mount Olive church peanuts five years ago by way of a regular who brought a jar in for him to sample, raving about their singularity. Since introducing them, they’ve become a favorite in the shop, which has a customer base made up of many European transplants, who Affatato says value traditional products over anything flashy or overstated. The peanuts, with their modest jar and shy white label, are a standout for this reason.

“It’s like the famous saying: the fancier the packaging, the less quality you may find inside,” suggests Affatato. It’s a sentiment that echoes Sissle’s.

“It sticks out like a pleasant sore thumb,” Sissle says of the jar. “I love products where the packaging isn’t necessarily sleek or creative. It’s very straightforward, especially in a food world where there are so many cute brands, but maybe most of the substance is in their packaging.”

While eye-catching branding may be low on the list of priorities for Sissle when he’s bringing in a new product, one that sits very high is integrity within the hands of the people making it.

“With any product that we carry in our shop, I hope it comes from good people and allows a story to be told,” he says, taking pride in the close connection he has to his customers and to the makers that he orders directly from. “We live in an increasingly complicated society, so I want to make sure that whatever we’re selling showcases traditional values in food and agricultural care.”

Visiting Sissle & Daughters for the first time this past summer, I spied the Mount Olive church peanuts neatly stacked by the register across from the cheese case filled with cheddars, bries, and goudas. A customer hurriedly reached in front of me for a jar, and then for two more. With my mouth watering, I broke the tenth commandment. I coveted my neighbor’s goods and took home two jars for myself.