High angle of tacos on white wooden board

How The South Starting Adding Peanuts To Coca-Cola

NEWS

By EMMY SCHNEIDER-GREEN

A picture of peanuts beside a picture of two bottles of Coca-Cola.
While it might sound strange, the salty tradition of mixing salty roasted peanuts and Coca-Cola soda is a culinary oddity dating back at least a century in the Southern U.S.
Southern workers posing for a picture in the early 20th century.
In the 1920s, Southern blue-collar workers needed a snack that provided calories, some nutrients, refreshment, and hydration. Both peanuts and Coca-Cola were inexpensive choices.
A person picking up a bottle of Coca-Cola filled with peanuts.
Food historians hypothesize that plunking nuts down into a bottle of Coke created a drinkable, hands-off snack that workers with dirty or greasy hands could enjoy on the job.
Workers working on an electric line.
Some think that the combo caught on when workers purchased bottles of Coke from wagons pedaling their fare around job sites, which offered soda and nuts.
A glass of Coca-Cola beside a bowl of peanuts.
The largely blue-collar worker population who put this drink on the map struck gold with its sweet and salty combo, which is just as refreshing today as it was a hundred years ago.