1432 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



ply is at present very small. Tlie cashew 

 nut of tropical regions, which many con- 

 sider one of the most delicious nuts 

 grown, has long been known. The 

 roasted nuts both salted and plain are 

 on sale rather commonly by dealers in 

 fruits and nuts and the demand for 

 them Is increasing. Cashew-nut candy 

 is also sold in a limited way in the 

 United States. This nut must be roasted 

 before it is eaten, as when raw it has 

 poisoning properties which are, however, 

 readily destroyed by heat. 



The Kingsland chestnut was almost 

 unknown a few years ago, but is now 

 being cultivated in California. It some- 

 what resembles a filbert in appearance 

 and is not a true chestnut. The tabebuia 

 (Telfairia pcdata), from Zanzibar, is a 

 nut eaten roasted, which has been grown 

 in a very limited way at the Porto Rico 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, and is 

 almost unknown except in the region 

 where it is native. The so-called nuts 

 are the seeds of a pumpkin-like fruit, 

 and are oval, rather flat, and much 

 larger than pumpkin seeds. The flavor is 

 oily and fairly palatable. Should a de- 

 mand arise it could be supplied by Porto 

 Rican growers. The use of such a seed 

 as a nut suggests the common use in 

 Russia of the sunflower seed, which is 

 rich in oil and not unlike some of the 

 common nuts in composition. The raw 

 sunflower seeds are eaten out of hand 

 at all times and by all classes. In China 

 watermelon seeds are eaten in the same 

 way. 



The Flavor of Nuts 



The flavor of nuts is very largely de- 

 pendent upon the oils which they con- 



tain, though in some there are also spe- 

 cific flavoring bodies. The nut oils 

 readily become rancid, the very disa- 

 greeable flavor of spoiled nuts being due 

 to this property. Some nuts (for in- 

 stance, the chestnut) have a starchy 

 flavor as well as a "nutty" taste. The 

 small native nut is much more highly 

 flavored than the large Italian or the 

 .Japanese chestnut. The almond pos- 

 sesses the cyanic-acid flavor, which is 

 characteristic of peach pits, plum pits, 

 etc., and this might be expected when 

 it is remembered that the almond is the 

 dried pit of an inedible fruit somewhat 

 resembling the peach in appearance and 

 closely related to it botanically. Most 

 almonds are mild flavored. The so- 

 called bitter almonds are, however, very 

 strong, the cyanic-acid-yielding glucosid 

 being present in considerable quantity. 

 In raw peanuts there is a decided flavor 

 resembling that of the closely related 

 beans and peas, and to some persons 

 this is not unpalatable. In the roasted 

 peanut, which most of us prefer to the 

 raw, the flavor is largely dependent upon 

 the browned oils and starches or other 

 carbohydrates. 



Composition of 'Nuts 

 The composition of nuts and nut prod- 

 ucts has been studied at a number of 

 the agricultural experiment stations, 

 notably California, Maine and Iowa, and 

 the following table summarizes the re- 

 sults of this work, the American data 

 being supplemented in a number of cases 

 by the results of European analyses. For 

 purposes of comparison several other 

 common food materials are also included. 



