Being culturally Southern, I’ve grown up drinking a bottle of RC Cola one of two ways: either with a Moon Pie (which I don’t like) or by putting a bag of peanuts in it.
What I don’t know, however, is where the idea of putting peanuts in an RC comes from. Any culinary anthropologists lurking about who can shed some light on the practice?
Not having spent much time in the South, all I have to add is that the peanut practice sounds completely bizarre to me. I can’t imagine why anyone would do that.
The lyrics from Barbara Mandrell’s “I was Country when County wasn’t Cool” includes this line:
I was puttin’ peanuts in my Coke
Which I have heard of.
I suppose using RC Cola would be the same thing. Thanks to Brother Dave Garner RC seems to have become identified as a Southern Thing.
Anyway, back to the peanuts in the Coke (or RC)
Yes I’ve seen it and done it in the Deep South.
My memories of this go back to the 50’s and the practice was apparantly pretty old by then
In the cases I’ve seen my family do it…we were driving on a long trip and the peanuts were poured into the coke at the filling station while we were gassing up. Then everybody jumped back into the car and kept driving. And drinking and munching.
In every case we didn’t have time to sit down to a meal in a diner or restaurant (remember, if this practice was going on before the 50’s there weren’t any fast food drive throughs to buzz in and out of).
When I would ask about it I’d be told it was a truck drivers trick. It was a meal on the run.
Cuz it’s tasty! We used to do it as kids, also. I’ve lived within an hour of Abq my whole life, FWIW.
When I lived in Charlottesville and strayed away from the university grounds, I saw some old guys in a laundromat doing that. I had no idea it was more than an individual idiosyncrasy until Barbara Mandrell’s song came out a year or two later.
I tried it myself once. It didn’t improve the flavor of the cola or the peanuts, and I never felt tempted to try it again.
Now smoking, on the other hand, I took to like a duck to water…
Putting peanuts in a bottle of RC or Coca Cola was a common practice in Dallas County during the 1940s and 1950s. I don’t know if it is still done.
My dad used to do that when I was a kid. I never liked it myself. It made the coke flat, and the peanuts soggy. Where’s the upside?
My dad also used to place bets on whose coke bottle came from farthest away. (For those too young to remember, the old six-ounce bottles used to have the bottling plant of origin embossed on the bottom. The bottles were returnable for deposits and they were repeatedly sterilized and re-used by bottling plants, through which process the bottles would circulate around the country. I once got one from Hawaii at a country store in Georgia.)
You speak truth. After one or two efforts to enjoy cola-soaked peanuts in a salty-sweet liquid, I decided it was a delicacy I could forego. And the styrofoam taste of Moon Pies never grabbed me either.
The bit with the bottles is something I remember too well. And how the glass would get all worn down from all the recycling. Like the glass you pick up on the beach. But there has never been a cola with the zing of those old 6-oz Cokes. The “classic coke” scam was one of the worst failures ever, as far as I’m concerned. Oh, for a return of those old Cokes! Burn your nose if you drink them too fast.
The word “coke” in the South is synonymous with any soda; root beer is a coke, Orange Crush is a coke, grape Nehi is a coke.
We had RC Cola up in Michigan, but not by choice. That stuff was foul. I didn’t realize it was a southern thing. How southern are we talking here? I’m in North Carolina now and I haven’t seen an RC Cola yet.
RC is based in Columbus, GA.
It’s Southern but not necessarily ubiquitous. In fact, you can’t expect to find it in every store. This link and others you could Google may help to explain why Pepsi and Coke (along with other even more regional colas like Double Cola) may have kept RC from being as well-known and as easily found. When I was little, the main thing about RC was that it was in a bigger bottle. But once Coke and Pepsi got on board with bigger bottles their ad campaigns helped to shove RC into the background. I never could tell all that much difference in the taste of those “big 3” soft drinks back then. But my tastes have never been all that educated, I reckon. Co-dranks are co-dranks as far as I can tell.
I went to my grandpa who was raised in Columbus, GA for the straight dope. He said they liked to put Tom’s Peanuts in RC cola, both Columbus based companies. His reason for combining them was because “sweet and salty taste good together”. You combined them because you had chores to do and it freed up a hand. He thought that the truck driver explanation was spot-on.
A nitpick from my region, only colas are Coke. Orange sodas are "Nehi"s.
It’s funny, we had a heated discussion on the proper preparation of this snack last night (alchohol was a factor in the discussion). My colleague from Oklahoma said RC and peanuts, I (from Virginia) said Coke and peanuts. Our colleague from New Hampshire wanted to know what the hell we were talking about.
We did agree on one point: it is best when the cola is in one of those long, thin bottles you don’t see any more. We also agree that either of us could kick the guy from New Hampshire’s ass.
Oh, man. An RC and a Moon Pie…snack food of the gods. To the OP - I’ve seen members of my family who live In Arkansas do this. I tried it once. Meh. But they also gave the “It frees up a hand” reason.
While this may be true for some areas, I don’t really think it is that way in mine. Maybe I’m too young (24), but for me coke was always Coca-Cola. The term for everything in general was a “soft-drink” Never “soda” or anything else. If someone in my family (never left Mississippi) asked me, “Want a coke?” and I said, “Yeah, get me a sprite” they’d look at me weird. You’d say, “no, I’d like a sprite”
Just so you know it’s not universal in the south. And we also don’t say “y’all” to one person unless attempting to refer to some other group they are in, “family, group of friends, etc.” You’ll never say, “can y’all get me a pack of cigarettes” when talking to a cashier.
Tried it, didn’t like it. Last peanut stuck to the bottom of the bottle.
[aside] Is Brother Dave Gardner, who I haven’t heard in decades, why I still pronounce it “R ‘n’ C”? Or, more like, “arrenseecola,” all run together like?
Anybody else call a Coke a “dope”? [/aside]
The way I heard Bro Dave’s reference to the drink was more like “arra-o-cee co-cola” and until you had it as “arrenseecola” I never thought to question it. The “arra” for “R” is fairly obvious, but the “o-cee” vs. “n-cee” part might require more careful scrutiny.
There used to be a couple of decent websites with audio files of things from Dave’s records, but I wasn’t able to locate them last time I checked (a few months back). Anybody have a link to a decent site?
[further aside] Dave had a little ditty he did that went something like the line in “Santa Claus is coming to town” fused with the old Robert Hall’s clothing store jingle. I replayed that audio file dozens of times until I was satisfied I had the phonetics down close to his. It was something like
School bells ringing
Children singing
Bobba-zatsa-robba-zobbat-hobba-zobba-gibba-zing
The shit that has struck me odd over these many years…
If you use roasted peanuts, they’re better in Mountain Dew or Sundrop. Only boiled “bald” peanuts should be put in RC Cola.
Perhaps.
But could either of you finish a can of Moxie?
I did really like those tall skinny glass bottles - the ones that came in a pack of 8, in a cardboard carrier. Is pop sold in them at all anymore?