Do-Tella

Saucynut – What can you tell me about hazelnuts or as I like to say filberts – Squirrelly

Hazelnuts are the fruit of the hazel tree. And by tree, I mean a shrubby, low growing tree that is often used as a field break or an edible hedgerow. The hazelnut’s cultivation dates back to at least Roman times but the Romans weren’t the first to crack this nut. The tree seems to be from Asia minor/Turkey, it has been exploited for food since prehistoric times. After the fall of the empire, hazelnuts weren’t really used as crops in Europe until the end of the 16th century, where the English began growing the trees outside of Kent. About the same time, New World colonists were unimpressed with wild nut available to them in the Americas and sent back to England for better fruiting varieties.

It wasn’t just Anglo-Saxons who took to the hazelnut renaissance. The French enjoy their noisette and possibly named the nut in after St. Phillbert the Norman King. The Italians grow the nocciola outside of Piemont and for other Europeans, there is nutella to spread on everything. Turkey is the world’s leading producer of hazelnuts with Italy, Spain making significant contributions to the annual crop. In the US, hazelnuts are grown almost exclusively in Oregon.

Nutella is an obvious hazelnut product, but outside of the familiar oval jar the combination of chocolate, sugar and hazelnuts are a winning combination in the pastry kitchen. Frangelico is a hazelnut flavored liquor. The nuts turn up in Sauce Romesco, in Turkish Delight/lokum. Hazelnut oil is expensive and quick to spoil, but makes for really good salad dressing. Torrone is a hazelnut nougat found in Italy and Dukka is a hazelnut spread used in Egyptian cuisine.

Some sources swear hazelnuts and filberts, commonly used as synonyms, are not really interchangeable. A hazelnut is generally regarded as the wild nut; while the filbert, the larger nut that has been cultivated from European varieties. This usage isn’t universally endorsed, consistently applied and is really more of an opinion than immutable rule.

The classification problem isn’t the exclusive problem of the filbert. The taxonomy of all nuts is a difficult proposition. What makes a nut a nut? A shell? Explain coconuts or pine nuts. Brazil nuts are not the fruit of a tree but a swollen stem. Walnut, pecan and acorns all act like nuts – shells, trees, clusters of nuts are easy to classify. Chestnuts look and act like nuts, except they store most of their energy as starch as opposed to fat. The almond, which is fatty, but is rather confusingly a member of the non-nutty prunus (cherry/peach) family. Peanuts are both tubers and legumes - not nuts at all, except people with nut allergies avoid them assiduously.