are impossible to define in a manner which would be compatible with popular usage yet acceptable to botanists. In this book popular usage is preferred, so the groundnut (a legume, also called peanut) and the chufa nut (a tuber) are allowed to shelter under the umbrella word. (Incidentally, some other languages lack an umbrella word equivalent to nut. Noix in French looks like one, but just means walnut.)
Nuts are highly nutritious. Some contain much fat (e.g. pecan 70%, macadamia nut 66%, Brazil nut 65%, walnut 60%, almond 55%); most have a good protein content (in the range of 10–30%); and only a few have a very high starch content (notably the chestnut, ginkgo nut, and acorn). The water content of nuts, as they are usually sold, is remarkably low, and they constitute one of the most concentrated kinds of food available. Most nuts, left in the shell, are also remarkable for their keeping quality, and can conveniently be stored for winter use.
The nutritional quality of nuts is evidently one factor which causes people to think of them as particularly health giving. But they also have a certain mystique, perhaps as a putative food of the hominoids who preceded human beings; and this may be one of the factors which make nuts a prominent food of vegetarians—in England, ‘nut rissoles’ have served as a symbol, for non-vegetarians, of vegetarian food. And the fact that they come in a sealed container provided by nature—and one more substantial than, say, an eggshell or banana skin—buttresses their reputation as a ‘pure’ food.
Nuts are also associated with festivities such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. Partly because they are such a concentrated food, they are not a staple item in any modern diet, although in past times the chestnut and the acorn were staples in some regions of Europe. Some of the best nuts, e.g. the macadamia nut, pine nut, and pistachio, are and are likely to remain expensive, but the increasing tendency to use nuts in small quantity, often to provide texture and flavour for foods which would otherwise be bland, makes it feasible to enjoy them in this way.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
