12 questions · Nature
If you can already tell a walnut from a hazelnut, here is the next level: twelve nuts and nut-like fruits that rarely end up on the plate, but are all the more interesting botanically, culturally or in the kitchen. Among them are the three-sided beechnuts and the acorn, both fruits of native forest trees, plus the horse chestnut, which despite its looks is not edible. You will get to know the tiger nut, which is really a root tuber, the ginkgo nut from East Asia, the stimulating kola nut and the areca nut, chewed across South Asia. The set is rounded off by black walnut and hickory nut from North America, the stone pine kernel from the Alps, the water chestnut and nutmeg, whose grated powder belongs in every potato soup. Many of these fruits carry the word nut without being one in the strict sense and some are even poisonous when raw. Did you know that nutmeg is intoxicating and toxic in larger amounts? A whole nut can be dangerous, so in cooking a few strokes on the grater are always more than enough.
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Which nut is this?
Foto: MarsmanRom · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Beechnut
Beechnuts are the small, three-sided fruits of the beech tree, sitting in pairs inside a spiky husk.
💡 Did you know? Raw they are mildly toxic; roasted, they were once eaten as emergency food.
Foto: Arnstein Rønning · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Acorn
The acorn is the fruit of the oak, held in a little cap (cupule). Wild boar and squirrels love them.
💡 Did you know? For humans, raw acorns are bitter and hard to digest due to tannins.
Foto: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Horse chestnut
The glossy brown horse chestnut (conker) looks like a sweet chestnut but is poisonous and inedible. Children love making figures from them.
💡 Did you know? Its tell is the round shape without a point: the edible chestnut has a tip and a little tuft.
Foto: Tamorlan · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Tiger nut
The tiger nut (chufa) is not a nut at all but a small, wrinkly root tuber of a sedge. It is used to make the drink horchata.
💡 Did you know? It was already a popular food in ancient Egypt.
Foto: Fumikas Sagisavas · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Ginkgo nut
The kernel of the ginkgo seed is eaten cooked as a delicacy in East Asia. The surrounding flesh, though, smells unpleasant.
💡 Did you know? The ginkgo is a living fossil: its lineage is over 200 million years old.
Foto: T.K. Naliaka · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Kola nut
The kola nut is the caffeine-rich seed of the kola tree. Chewed in West Africa, it gave cola drinks their name.
💡 Did you know? Early cola recipes really did contain kola-nut extract.
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