A HARD NUT

In cookery and everyday life nut is the name usually given to any edible fruit which consists of a hard outer shell (whether it be hard or soft) and a kernel. From nuts you can make preserves and prepare confectionary, such as tarts, pies, halva [Eastern sweetmeat made from crushed nuts and seeds] and add them to a dish as an ingredient. In the autumn, the season when nuts are harvested, it is time to talk about the "countless" nutritional properties of walnuts, whose fruits so brilliantly characterise the variety of natural produce in Azerbaijan.

The "clever" nut

Walnut kernels look like the brain, which meant that it was prohibited to consume them in Babylon. According toHerodotus, the priests believed that a person eating these nuts became drastically cleverer. In his "Dialogues on Atlantis", Plato said that walnuts were able to think, hiding and crawling away from the gatherers, and the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin thought that unripe walnuts squeaked and cried when they were picked.

The walnut is the fruit of a large tree with a big spreading canopy and pale grey bark.

It is cultivated in the Saki-Zaqatala zone, in Ordubad, Quba, Ganca and several other districts of Azerbaijan. These nuts are very rich in fats, so 20 nuts are sufficient to meet a person's daily needs in them. In Azerbaijan the nuts are used in the form ofhalva as a general tonic in cases of anaemia and to help the recuperation process after an illness. Azeri confectionary items known as sheker bura and badambura are indicated as a tonic to fortify the body.

The Mediaeval Azerbaijani healer Muhammad Mu'min noted: "Forty-five grammes of nuts ground with an equal quantity of ginger, act as a laxative. Ginger, roasted with nutshells, is good for treating coughs and colds. Chewing old nut kernels on an empty stomach, as well as the ointment made from them, can be used for treating cramps, muscle strain, rashes in children, alopecia, and lumps in women's breasts. Walnuts can also be used as a helminthagogue".

Antidotes can also be prepared from walnut kernels, ginger and rue. If you take this remedy before you drink poison, it lessens its effect, and, if you take it after you have drunk the poison, it completely neutralizes the poison's effect.

Walnuts are difficult to digest. They are absorbed better if you drink pomegranate juice with them. Mouldy nuts are poisonous. An ointment used for treating gout and paralysis can be made from ground walnut flowers. An extract of walnut leaves boiled with henna can be applied to treat nasal catarrh and chronic headache. The ash of the nut's internal partition is boiled and drunk to stop bleeding. The resin is used to treat mouth ulcers and toothache."

Avicenna also notes that "Any nut skin is an astringent and stops bleeding…Place the chewed kernel of nuts on ulcerated tumours and that will help… Walnut preserve is good for treating diseases of the kidneys…"

The stiffened partitions between the two parts of the kernel and the hard nutshell are used in Azerbaijani folk medicine. They are drunk in the form of a water-based extract to treat hypertension and atherosclerosis.The fresh, woody partitions of the walnut can be infused in brandy and honey for a week and taken in doses of one tablespoon three times per day to treat goitre. When you have tonsillitis you can gargle your throat with a water-based extract of leaves and the green husk of the walnut.

As an energy boost

It is particularly good for you to eat walnuts in the winter. You see, a person expends more energy during that season. Walnuts contain many irreplaceable amino acids, especially lysine. In their composition they are similar to the proteins in meat. Walnuts are rich in semi-unsaturated fatty acids, which obstruct the development of atherosclerosis. The green fruits of the walnut contain large amounts of vitamin C and are therefore used in treating scurvy. Group B vitamins and a large amount of vitamin A are present in the mature nuts, as well as important mineral substances and micro-elements, especially iodine and zinc. Walnut butter is used for treating skin diseases.

You can eat 4-5 nuts per day to protect you from the effects of various types of radiation. They are good for you when you are suffering from vitamin deficiency and your body lacks salts of cobalt and iron. Walnuts contain potassium and magnesium, which are good for treating anaemia. The vitamins A and E contained in them improve the working of the blood vessels.

It has long been known that consuming a dozen walnuts per day restores male potency. When combined with goat's milk, this is a remarkable remedy for preventing prostatitis and adenoma.Walnuts are also good for you if you have diabetes. It is also known that, if a person does hard physical work, walnuts help him to get his strength back more quickly.

Extract of walnut leaves can also be good for bathing children when they have rickets and scrofula. Besides this, the vitamin F contained in the nuts improves the working of the skin.

But in all of these cases the first thing that you need to know is that walnuts never replace medicines and secondly you must not prescribe them for yourself; you need the advice of a doctor. Just like everything in nature, walnuts are counter-indicated in the case of some diseases.

You should not eat walnuts if you have chronic colitis and enterocolitis. They are not good for you if you are suffering from acute intestinal diseases and at heightened risk of blood clotting. Owing to their high protein content, walnuts may cause an allergic reaction, even stomatitis and allergic diathesis. They are not good for patients suffering from neurodermatitis, psoriasis, eczema and other skin ailments. In general, it is not recommended that people who have a tendency to put on weight should eat too many walnuts, since they are very high in calories.

Gardener Latifa Zeynalova says that walnuts are mainly ready for picking in October, but sometimes even earlier. This is a very long-living plant, usually growing for 300 years, and all that time it gives a good crop. As a rule, a tree has 10 to 300 kg of nuts on it, depending on many factors, first and foremost the variety of nuts and also the climate and the extent to which the tree is tended.

Walnuts do not grow well on the Abseron peninsula, the gardener says, owing to the ground waters that the tree does not like. The tree needs to be given superphosphate fertiliser and ash, and when planting saplings a small quantity of manure should be added to the soil. The tree needs watering from April to September. If you water it too often, new shoots appear which will obstruct the development of the main tree. The fact is that the walnut tree likes plenty of space. Its wood is considered to be one of the most valuable and beautiful in the world.

WALNUT SYRUP

According to Muhammed Mu'min, "walnut syrup is a good remedy for nausea. Gargling with it helps in treating a sore throat".

How to prepare: 

Boil the green shells of unripe walnuts in water until three-quarters of the water has boiled away. Add honey to the remaining mixture and simmer on a low heat until three-quarters of the mixture has boiled away and the syrup does not get any thicker.

PILAF FISINJAN: PILAF WITH MEAT AND WALNUTS

Ingredients:

Lamb (taken from the shoulder or the breast) or poultry meat - 200 g

Onion - 1

Clarified butter - 50 g

Walnut kernels -100 g

Pomegranate juice or narsharab (thick pomegranate sauce - 25 g

Cinnamon - 0.2 g

Rice - 100 g

Saffron - 5-6 strands

To make the fisinjan (trimmings), cut the lamb into 3-4 chunks per portion, season it with salt and black pepper and fry it. Then add finely chopped onion, ground walnuts, sour-sweet pomegranate juice or narsharab, cinnamon, a little stock and simmer until cooked. In olden times housewives used to put a cleaned horseshoe piece in the stew to get a fuller dark colour. The rice is boiled separately for the pilaf.

To serve, heap the hot pilaf on the plate. Part of it is coloured with an infusion of saffron. Serve the fisinjan on the side or separately.

WALNUT PRESERVE

The court doctor Muhammed Mu'min (1697) wrote that "walnut preserve fortifies the body, and boosts sexual ability". It is still referred to it as the "king" of the sweet world that, besides having an original flavour, is incalculably good for the body. The magical delicacy possesses bactericidal, antisclerotic and anti-inflammatory properties. It is rich in linoleate, vitamins C, PP, group B, and contains iodine, magnesium, zinc, copper and phytoncides.

Selecting the right walnuts is halfway to a successful preserve, because you need to tackle this process in a completely responsible manner. You need to pick large ideally shaped walnuts for the preserve, which do not have any black patches on them or other defects. The walnuts should be green, with a soft milky, waxy shell inside. You can check that they are suitable by piercing them with a toothpick. If it goes right through the walnut, then it is just right. The best time to make this preserve is the second half of June.

Ingredients: 

Green walnuts - 100 

Water - 400 ml 

Sugar - 1 kg

Cloves - 10

Cinnamon - 10 g

Lemons - 2

Make a syrup from the sugar and water and allow to cool. Put the walnuts into it and add the juice of the two lemons. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and leave for 24 hours. Repeat this process three times, and then boil until completely cooked, until the walnuts become really soft. Transfer the sweet walnuts to sterilised jars, pour in the remaining syrup and seal.