42 43 al nocciolo to the core 3 available online @ manentscripta.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/peanuts-last-strip.gif A meaningless noun even to Charles M. Schulz, when it was proposed to baptize his daily cartoon strips. Peanuts seemed to him a «totally ridiculous, senseless and without dignity» word. Unlike his humour, which he himself wanted instead to define as highly dignified. He couldn't make it with the idea to trivialize his work. «It's a terribly serious matter». Carried on day by day, translated into more than 20 languages, exported to around 70 countries. Surely his Peanuts were not mere peanuts. Comics' world, from the more or less neighbouring territories of Disney Studios, did not help in encouraging Schulz's benevolence towards that name. Peanuts capable of turning Goofy into Super Goof must have seemed to him nothing more than the ridiculous underlining of an improbable change. Especially for someone like him, who conceived superpowers as the way we think about the things - and certainly nothing concerning acts out of the ordinary, or transgressing any physical or natural law. Too far and distant in its interdimensional sanctity, neither pre-Columbian art of Moche civilization must have convinced Schulz to change his mind about peanuts. lt was useless for him to see them depicted on the gold and silver plates that made up the precious necklaces adorning the deceased Warrior Preasts' necks. He would have certainly selected something else, to accompany that mysterious passing. As he did for his own demise, choosing word of thanks typed by the best friend of typewriter, Snoopy the dog 3. Truth in it is that peanuts - with their 13 vitamins, their 26 minerai salts, their 30% in proteins and even 30 times the amount of resveratrol contained in grapes - are not joking at all. They are a much more nutritious food than meat, in spite of their misinformed detractors. And if anyone ever asks you «Which is heavier, one kilo of peanuts or one kilogram of beef liver?», you could easily answer «One kilo of peanuts». Gaily shrugging about the fact that those who asked the question could believe that you have not grasped the hidden trap. Let them look at you with that typical expression of those who did not understand if you understood. Then, if you like, you can take the satisfaction of telling them that even if weight is the same, value is very different. Moreover, to be finicky as well as botany lovers, truths are even two, and second is: peanuts are not nuts, peanuts are legumes. Like peas, chickpeas, all beans and soy. And now, let's x-ray peanuts. Among other remarkable substances, they include potassium, copper, magnesium, vitamin B-3, vitamin E, oleic acid and various antioxidant molecules. A mix that can increase good cholesterol [HDL] as well as helping to reduce bad cholesterol [LDL] and triglycerides, with a beneficial cardiovascular disease prevention function. 4 Reference is here to Vladimir Jankélévitch, Le je-ne -sais-quoi et le presque-rien, ed. PUF, Paris, 1957 Even if they are fat-rich, with a significant caloric content, it therefore seems that they can be good for the heart. And for the liver too. Peanuts have a cholesterol-lowering effect and prevent the formation of gallstones, mainly composed of cholesterol. One of the coolest things is that peanuts won't spare us their generosity. In the kitchen or at the counter, they are there. In grain or entire, they offer themselves. Spreadable, they tend to infinity. Oil obtained from them, with its high smoke point, is perfect for frying, while applied on the body it relieves pain and inflammation. But let's get back to infinity, because peanuts have much more to do with the infinite than with the almost nothing4 . Take a peanut not shelled. Put it on a sheet and follow its contour with a pencil, then remove it from the paper. The traced outline will vaguely recali the number eight, symbol of infinity. But something will still be missing. Let's then break the shell in the middle, pull the two parts apart from each other and, again, trace their contours. Once reached the breaking point, we have to cross that empty space directing the sign towards the opposite frontal part, keeping on descending - or on going up, if we started from below - and doing the same when we will reach the other breaking point. There won't be any need to remove the pencil from the sheet but, crossing the gap between the two parts, we ask you to focus on the feeling of vertigo leading straight to extreme change, the only one capable of breaking the automatism that binds us to a single existential possibility. Breaking that shell means creating the space necessary to release the courage of revolution, in crossing the void that triggers the change, confident that we will find the nourishment required to face and overcome it. Peanuts grant us this kind of nourishment first of ali on a physical level, because it is the plant itself dealing with the aforementioned upturning at each of its lifecycle. lts scientific name, Arachis hypogæa, provides a great indication, and absence of rachis represents a considerable advantage. Both the growing and the development of this annual herbaceous plant, in fact, retrace the eight scheme: plant sprouts from the earth to the sky, it blooms, and once the flowers become mature, after pollinated, they return to earth, buried up to five centimetres. Starting from this condition, flowers will become sui generis 'fruits', ready to come back to light full of all the nourishment that distinguishes them. And now, are you still comfortable with the word peanut?
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