Juglans Neotropica - Fruit

Fruit

Edible fruit is produced in husks that are yellow-green when ripe; collection is either by picking fallen fruits from the ground, or otherwise harvesting from the canopy when the husks show signs of being ripe. The sap of the fruit husk is a strong dye and can stain hands and clothing. The nut inside is within a much harder and more difficult to crack shell than Persian walnuts, but the meat inside is comparable in flavour, perhaps a bit sweeter. "Tocte", the fruit of the Andean walnut, are often sold in the farmer's markets of Ecuador. The process of husk removal often stains the shells of the nuts black.

Like all walnuts, unripe fruit husks produce a strong yellow dye that does not require mordant; ripe fruits produce a strong red to brown dye that does not require a mordant, and if cooked in an iron pot, a strong deep black dye.

Fruits must be soaked in water for 24–48 hours, but not allowed to ferment, after which the loosened pulp can be manually removed to reveal the walnut inside. There may be as few as 20 or as many as 200 nuts in a kilogram. Optimum storage temperature is 4 to 6°C.

Read more about this topic:  Juglans Neotropica

Famous quotes containing the word fruit:

    I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    The goldenrod is yellow,
    The corn is turning brown,
    The trees in apple orchards
    With fruit are bending down.
    Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885)

    Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
    Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
    Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
    Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d.
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)