Hotel Roanoke Peanut Soup

When in the city of Roanoke, Virginia, there is one dish that is absolutely worth trying - the peanut soup at the grand Hotel Roanoke. The soup is considered to be a Southern delicacy, dating back to the 1700s. As peanuts were embraced by the Africans in the 1500s, they were later brought across the ocean to colonial Virginia via the slave trade. Virginia peanut soup is a variety of maafe, a peanut soup popular in Senegal and Gambia, but at Hotel Roanoke, the soup is flavored with lemon juice, butter, and chicken broth, so it is slightly milder than the spicy West African version. The dish was created in 1940 by chef Fred Brown, along with a companion dish called spoonbread. The recipes for both dishes were a secret until the early 1950s, when the hotel management recognized a great PR oppurtunity and started spreading them around. Today, the hotel serves about 48 peanut soup dishes a day, celebrating the region and the whole historic nature of the property.