By Joel Denker
So ordinary is the walnut to us, so extraordinary in many other cultures. “I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley,” King Solomon says of walnuts in the Old Testament. The ancient tree, a long-lived, sturdy hardwood that can tower a hundred feet, impressed the Greeks with its majesty. The puny acorn’s fruits were fit for men, the walnuts for the Gods.
The Greeks called the walnut caryon from kara, the word for head. In their minds, the walnut shell resembled the skull and its kernel the hemisphere of the brain. Centuries later, European herbalists, who considered the walnut cerebral nourishment, recommended it for the mentally ill.
The Romans invested the nut with similar qualities. A celestial nut, it was to them Juglans, Jupiter’s acorn. The prolific tree represented fertility and abundance to the Romans. The charmed walnuts became part of their wedding rituals. Bride and groom nibbled on the nuts during their celebration. After the wedding feast, they scattered walnuts around their bedroom.
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To learn more about walnuts, see The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat, coming in October from Rowman & Littlefield: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442248861/The-Carrot-Purple-and-Other-Curious-Stories-of-the-Food-We-Eat.
