Peanuts or ground nuts?

By Donna Stokes

October 3, 2019

Last Updated: April 15, 2010

Be careful when you ask Dr. Alson Lyimo, program manager of the northeast zone of Tanzania, if he'd like some peanuts. "Peanuts?" he asked me, looking aghast at the bag of Kenya Airways nuts I offered. "Those are NOT peanuts! What you call peanuts are ground nuts. I don't know where you get this name."

He later had an opportunity to show us the proof at a guesthouse we stayed at that had a garden. See the evidence of the nuts being pulled from the ground above. I see his point, but "Mr. Ground Nut" doesn't really have the same ring to it.