A while back mistwalker asked me to get some pictures of Pignuts. These pics were taken at Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire, there were literally hundreds of pignuts grown on the hillside, everywhere we looked more and more of them. The ground was open to the elements and was well drained. Other places have been very water logged and quite fertail soil, next to a shoreline, and other places have been highly sandy soil. There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule as to the type of soil, but may be wrong about that.
A couple of obvious and basic bits of advice:
The flower heads :
This shows both a new flowerhead and an old one:
Here you can see the leave structure, note the thin feathery likeness.
The nuts themselves vary greatly in size, from almost nothing to well over an inch in size. They are found from just a couple of centimeters under the soil to as much as 10 or more, although most in most cases they are quite shallow. The way to find it is to follow the stem of the plant down to the soil top and as gently as you can remove the soil without breaking the stem, as it will bend off at an angle under the ground. You need to follwo this stem to the nut, if it breaks it can be impossible to find.
These pics show the nut just to the left of the stem, the small brown and cream coloured object. The nuts are covered with a dark skin, which is easily removed with your finger nail or a knife.
If you're careful you should be able to dig the plant out and you will be holding something that looks like this:
Just snap the pignut off, scrap the skin off and eat as is, or you can roast them lightly or stir fry them. I like them raw, but also just cooked so they still have some bite, yet the flavour has changed subtly.
A couple of obvious and basic bits of advice:
- If you don't know what something is don't eat it. Pignuts are very similar to any number of the group of plants belonging to the umbellifer family, such as hemlock, hogweed etc. etc.
- As with all foods you haven't consumed before, even those from a supermarket, there is a small risk that you may be allergic or suffer some other reaction. Caution is advised.
The flower heads :
This shows both a new flowerhead and an old one:
Here you can see the leave structure, note the thin feathery likeness.
The nuts themselves vary greatly in size, from almost nothing to well over an inch in size. They are found from just a couple of centimeters under the soil to as much as 10 or more, although most in most cases they are quite shallow. The way to find it is to follow the stem of the plant down to the soil top and as gently as you can remove the soil without breaking the stem, as it will bend off at an angle under the ground. You need to follwo this stem to the nut, if it breaks it can be impossible to find.
These pics show the nut just to the left of the stem, the small brown and cream coloured object. The nuts are covered with a dark skin, which is easily removed with your finger nail or a knife.
If you're careful you should be able to dig the plant out and you will be holding something that looks like this:
Just snap the pignut off, scrap the skin off and eat as is, or you can roast them lightly or stir fry them. I like them raw, but also just cooked so they still have some bite, yet the flavour has changed subtly.
