While peanuts are legumes, their large proportion of oil gives them an important point of similarity to nuts in their chemical composition. Furthermore, their use has been like that of nuts rather than that of legumes. Peanuts, like the other legumes, require cooking to make them edible. They are not usually boiled or baked, but rather roasted. This roasting is usually done while the peanuts are still within the shell. The roasting develops the flavors of the peanut as any other methods of cooking could not do. The large percentage of protein and the division of the carbonaceous foods among starch, sugar, and fats makes the peanut one of the best-balanced food materials available. It is likely that one could maintain life and a normal condition of the body for an indefinite period on a diet of peanuts alone. If one were to seek some food to eat along with peanuts, which would maintain the body in a condition of proper nourishment, he might well choose a fruit, such, for example, as the apple. On a diet of peanuts and apples, assuming that these foods were taken abstemiously and were very thoroughly masticated - in fact, pulverized - the body would be maintained in a proper state of nutrition for an indefinite period.

The expressed oil of the peanut is excellent for table use, probably second only in quality to olive oil, and, like olive oil, possessing a sweetish, pleasant flavor.

The roasted peanuts divested of their thin brown coat may be ground into a paste. The pasty consistency of the ground peanut is due to the large percentage of oil. This paste is found in the market as peanut butter. It may be prepared in the kitchen by passing the roasted peanuts through a meat hasher and perhaps further crushing them under a potato masher or pestle.