Reflections on the puddle of life

no, not those type!

You know how sometimes, you're having an innocent conversation about, oh, something like being hot, and the next moment it turns into an in depth discussion about nuts? Well, this happened to me the other day. My husband claims that these bizarre turns in our discussions are entirely my fault, but then there's no proof of that, and I'm not admitting to anything.

Anyways, the discussion went something along these lines:

Hubby: Phew, it's really hot.
Me : No it isn't.
Hubby: No, it's really hot but it's coming from the inside.
Me : Perhaps you're being dry roasted by all the peanuts you just ate.
Hubby: huh huh huh

(a quiet moment ensues)

Me: you know, it just occurred to me that I've never seen a cashew nut in its shell. Don't all nuts have shells? Is that what makes a nut a nut?
Hubby: I think so. I've never seen a cashew nut in its shell either.
Me: I wonder, is a cashew the only nut I've never seen in its shell? And do Brazil nuts come from Brazil, and do they come from the Brazil tree?
Hubby: I dunno?!!! (silent cry for help)

(much musing follows)

so, you get the general idea (you don't want to hear the whole conversation do you?)

Anyways, in the course of this discussion we realised a few things:

1) we didn't know exactly what it was that made a nut a nut, and
2) we didn't seem to be able to identify many nuts, considering how much fruit, berries, seeds there are, we thought there might be more than the handful we'd identified, and
3) thinking about nuts before bedtime gives you freaky dreams.

So yesterday we spent (sadly) a little bit of time researching about nuts on the internet and, you know what, we found out that we knew next to nothing about nuts at all!

So, here's some fascinating nut facts:

- having the title 'nut' after the name does not make it an actual nut. For example, cashew nuts are actually seeds, peanuts are actually legumes (like beans and peas).
- some things which don't have the title 'nut' after the name are actually nuts, for example acorns are nuts. Horses get addicted to acorns even though they give them dodgy tummies.
- 'chestnuts' are not the same as conkers. Conkers (the 'nut' of the Horse Chestnut tree) are inedible to humans. Don't eat them, not even roasted.

In addition, during the course of our investigations we also discovered some fascinating facts about fruit and vegetables, for example:

- bananas are actually berries, in the same classification as blueberries and cranberries.
- aubergines, peppers, corn, pumpkins and chillis are also fruit.
- pumpkins are in a classification of fruit known as pepo (how cute!)

The sum of these investigations made me realise a couple of things, it seems I know very little about foodstuffs, and botany is a very weird science.

Oh, and Brazil nuts are seeds of the Bertholletia excelsa tree, and come predominantly from Bolivia.