Walnut

Walnuts belong to genus Juglans, includes in the family Juglandaceae. Walnuts are deciduous trees, their lengths are10 - 40 meters which is about 30-130 ft. Its tree has pinnate leaves and these leaves are 200 - 900 millimeters long which is about 7-35 inches and has 5 - 25 leaflets. Walnut shoots have chambered pith. This character of walnut is similar to wing nuts. There are 21 species in the Walnut genus, spread across north temperate Old World from southeast Europe to east Japan and widely in New World from southeast Canada to west of California and south to Argentina. The pure walnuts cultivated from natural source are often named as organic walnuts, walnuts that contain no artificial flavor. Walnut derives from Old English word “wealhhnutu,” or "foreign nut", where wealh means "foreign", wealh is akin to the terms Welsh and Vlach. The walnut was introduced from Gaul and Italy. The previous name for the walnut was nux Gallica means "Gallic nut,” which was a Latin word.

The best walnut is considered to be Persian walnut native to the southeast Europe. The Black Walnut is a common species of walnut and it is native to eastern North America, therefore sometime called as American black walnut, but now it is also widely cultivated elsewhere round the World. The Black walnuts are edible, delicious, and nutritious, but these nuts have smaller core and a tremendously hard-hitting shell, not widely full-fledged for nut production. Black walnut extract cooking is very nutritious as it holds many major components needed for our brain, even research shows that black walnut or its extract both are chiefly important for our brain. Black walnut in the shell is very famous for its toxicity.

In 2004 a research by NYS Institute for Basic Research in Development Disabilities (OMRDD) shows that black walnut extract was able to restrain and defibrillate (break down) fibrillar amyloid beta proteins. This protein is the main component of amyloid plaques in the brain of patient with Alzheimer’s. A study at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea situated in Ohio shows that walnuts hold two major components “Gallic” and “Ellagic acid”. These components act as dual-inhibitors of the enzyme acetyl cholinesterase which has association with amyloid-B, together they inhibits protein aggregation and inhibit the site of acetyl cholinesterase which are responsible for the breakdown of acetylcholine.

History relies that walnuts are in use as cookery since thousand of years ago. It is not even used in sweet dishes but in salty dishes, not even as cooking oil but in salad dressing. Chocolate chip cookies-oatmeal + walnut is in use of many cookies industry, favored not even by young ones but are the favorite of elders too. The crunch of munch walnut cookies is best paired with either tea or coffee. Many bakeries use different species of walnuts to bake the bakery biscuits which are more consumed by the industry base biscuits. Candied walnuts are in used by many companies like Hershey’s, Cadbury, and Nestle. Either walnuts are coated with hard candy or coated by dark pure chocolate. Most of the companies are introducing sugared walnuts coated with icing sugar or salty sugar baked with salt on them. This gives a sensational taste during hard winters as your dry fruits appeal your hearted guests and make your coffee sip delicious. Walnuts are popular for their use in deserts. South East Asian use walnuts in their “Fruit Mix.” In Canada maple walnut fudge is in common used, this includes the maple syrup used in making fudge. Either the walnuts are core of fudge or its topping gives astounding flavor. Maple walnut fudge is also very healthy item due to its great nutrition facts. It uses natural maple syrup rather artificial sugar which develops the great taste of walnuts.