A 40-year Bluffton tradition continues this month at the Bluffton Senior Citizens Center.
That tradition is "making peanut brittle."
Here's some information that Toyna Meyers, center director, shared with the Icon about the process:
Peanut Brittle has been one of the biggest, most consistent fundraisers for the nonprofit organization. The Center is using the same receipt that Mr. and Mrs. Howard Stager shared back in 1974. Back in those days the Senior Center was located on South Main Street and had a much smaller kitchen.
“If you moved back you would bump butts with the other workers, “said Ralph Rammel, 92-year-old who helped at the old building. But just because the space was smaller, don’t think they made any less candy.
Records show that they made just about the same in those days as they do today. In fact, for quite a few years, the Senior Citizens Center made 1,000 pounds of brittle a year.
Tastes have changed and so the Center has cut back to 750 pounds a year. It takes 30 volunteers, working one morning a week for five weeks to make that much brittle.
According to Roger Edwards, the volunteer in charge of the brittle this year, it takes 250 pounds of raw peanuts. He doesn’t remember how much sugar was purchased this year as the sugar was bought in the summer.
“The manager at the Community Market grocery store told me the sale price in July was probably the best price we were going to see so we purchased what we needed then.
We work closely with Dave Houghtaling at the Community Market to keep our cost down,” shared Edwards. The candy is on sale now for $5.50 a pound at the Bluffton Senior Center now until they run out.
