NUTS IN MAY

© 2005 Nichola Fletcher

Dionysos entices me with a fragrant golden oil which coats my lips as I write.  The connection? He fell in love with a lady called Carya (she of the caryatid column), and when she died, Dionysos transformed her into a walnut tree, probably with gluttonous intent, since apparently in the golden age while men ate acorns, the gods feasted on walnuts.  Their Latin name (juglans) means 'Jove's nut', so people must have made the connection quite early on between eating walnuts and good humour.  Such celestial well-being is caused by tryptophan which produces serotonin in the brain and of which walnuts are a good source.

The English word stems from the German Welsche Nuss: 'foreign nuts'. They were also called brain nuts because, as William Cole pointed out in 1657 , 'Wall-nuts have the perfect Signature of the Head: The Kernel hath the very figure of the Brain, and therefore it is very profitable for the Brain, and resists poysons; For if the Kernel be bruised, and moystned with the quintessence of Wine, and laid upon the Crown of the Head, it comforts the brain and head mightily.'  (The oft-cited connection between the town of Braintree in Essex and walnuts turns out to be urban myth). Apart from herbal remedies for colic, fleas, skin diseases or making you sweat profusely, walnut juice is used as a dye; most fake tans make use of it.  Less known is the abrasive property of the shells, and until I saw a huge pile of them it hadn't occurred to me to wonder what happened to them.  Ground up, they are used as aircraft insulation and also to lubricate the tip of oilrig drills because the resulting sludge floats off instead of clogging.  

Culpeper wrote: 'The kernels, when they grow old, are more oily, and therefore not fit to be eaten', and for a long while walnut oil was simply used for animal feed, furniture oil and fuel. But no longer. It now commands high prices and is recognised as a distinguished culinary oil. The animals still get their share, though: the spent kernel pulp is formed into nutritious cakes which are fed to local cattle and milk sheep - imagine the flavour this imparts to cheese. All this was told to me by Franc Monsallier whose hands are permanently stained brown from growing and milling walnuts at Bordas, on the main road from Périgueux to Bergerac. Nowadays walnuts are an integral part of Périgourdine cuisine.  Crisp and milky, they arrive with your velvet-soft cabécou and are scattered over a salade Périgourdine; ground up, they are baked into moist gâteaux au noix and chocolate covered tartes aux noix. One of the more spectacular uses is in a gâteau Quercyoise: a fragile filo construction usually made with apples, but one version is made with walnuts, prunes and a sprinkling of cognac. Walnuts and luscious, squelchy mi-cuit prunes are a marriage made in heaven. 

Given their ubiquity, it was a surprise to be told that commercial walnut growing in Périgord dates back only to the early 20th century, when they were planted en masse as a nutritious long-term solution to famine in the region.  Before that, most commercial growers were based around Grenoble, the better-known growing region.  Indeed in Canada, walnuts are still known generically as noix de Grenoble, much to the Périgord growers' annoyance. But a greater threat than Grenoble to artisan millers like M. Monsallier comes partly from California, which grows the major part of the US crop and competes in export markets like the UK ('les anglais aiment beaucoup les noix'), but more importantly from forthcoming EU regulations which threaten his pure, cold-pressed oil.  Like most traditional millers, he uses a huge granite millstone which is so heavy and grinds away so slowly that the oil can be extracted without warming the kernels, thus producing the best quality première pression à froid. This has the most subtle flavour and the most favourable health qualities when it comes to omega-3 essential fatty acids.   

Millwheels like Monsallier's have been used since time immemorial, but some office-bound graduate has persuaded a committee that, being slightly porous, stone presents a health risk and their use is to be banned. EU food legislation is supposed to be risk-based, but one can't help feeling that a thorough assessment has not been conducted here. Compare the beneficial qualities of cold-pressed walnut oil produced by this extremely low-risk method (as Monsallier pointed out, there is more risk that he ends up with his own millstone round his neck), to that of oil made by stainless steel mill wheels that heat up the kernel, reduce the healthy attributes of the oil, and use more global-warming energy. A typical example of not looking beyond the boîte. 

Walnut oil is just one of several nut oils becoming more widely used. It's best to seek out local oils, reduce food miles, and do your body a favour, for nut oils are good news. In Australia go for macadamia oil; in Morocco, argan oil; in the tropics, coconut oil; in Europe, hazelnut and almond will complement the walnut.  Many nut oils don't keep very well so should be bought in small quantities and devoured quickly. Keep them dark and cool and do not let them linger to become rancid.    For my money, cold-pressed walnut oil is perfection.  A teaspoon a day is all you need to calm your nerves and lower your cholesterol, and furthermore it doesn't congeal in cold climates like olive oil does.  But that is as nothing to the joyous feast of early summer food that benefits from more than a mere teaspoonful: asparagus is heavenly rolled in it; salads made with spicy young herb leaves from the garden should be soused in it; purple sprouting broccoli and avocados are enhanced by it. Surprisingly, a small amount is wonderful on poached fish and shellfish, and Périgourdines wouldn't cook their oeufs sur plat with anything else. Their habit of adding a spoonful to their soup is well worth emulating.  

It is a complaint of mine that restaurant salads tend to arrive naked, scrumpled into a tower with a drizzle of some balsamic vinegar and posh green oil round the edge. This may look pretty but is not the hedonist's way. To bring a salad to life you need to work it hard and then eat it at once while the leaves are generously imbued with the oil but yet retaining their vivacity.   Such a salad will absorb more than the dressing, it will soak up all the delicious gravy from your plate as well.

The best description of how to prepare a salad (apart, perhaps, from the Revd. Sydney Smith's classic) comes from 'A Guide for the Greedy': a collection of exuberant essays written in the late nineteenth century by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.  As one of the earliest women food columnists and an unashamed gourmande, she drew on her extensive collection of early cookery books which, at the outbreak of the first World War she put into store in London while she and her husband went to live in America. On returning five years later with the intention of bequeathing her collection to a library, she was aghast to discover that the warehouse had been flooded and almost the whole collection destroyed.   This tragedy didn't damp her ardour for good food, though, and her description of how to mix a salad is a good reminder to restaurants and to those who have allowed the practice to slip. She recommends the same treatment for tomatoes which turn into a glorious summer soup. 

The dressing should be prepared in the bowl and presented at table with the salad leaves ready to be worked.  Then, in Elizabeth Robbins Pennell's words: 'To "fatigue" it as the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are fatigued yourself and your lettuces reduced to one-half their original bulk.  Then will the dressing have soaked through and through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony, an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with the years.' 

An old proverb says, 'A dog, a woman and a walnut tree: the harder you beat them the better they be.'  To that list we'd better add salads.

Nut oil suppliers:
Moulin de la Gaumerie, 24380 Bordas, France.  
Telephone +33 (0)5 53 04 47 28  www.monsallier.fr
www.merchant-gourmet.com
www.oilvinegar.com