Wispy Peanut String Ball (not a direct translation . . .)

While strolling the Wuhou Temple streets one night we passed by a huge vat of tan, powdery, stringy . . . something. We had absolutely no idea what we were looking at and no idea what the man behind the vat was doing as he gathered clumps and artfully spun them into little nests. So we had to buy some - Our rule of thumb with street food: If it looks interesting, buy it. Even if the purchase just means getting a closer look at the curious item. Usually we are only down $0.13-$0.50 for what is almost always a pleasant surprise and only occasionally, a grizzly and mealy excuse for a hot dog, or an ear of corn that could pass as fake. These particular nests turned out to be little bundles of sweet peanut string. As you can see, it took some effort to pull them apart. We whistled though a few of them pretty quick, a successful street purchase.