Walnuts: brain food of gods and demons?
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Thrown at weddings, used to paralyse witches and enhance brain power
Walnuts have always been an elite favourite, as recognised with the name Juglans regia —(royal nut) being modern shorthand for what Romans called "Jupiter's nut". Indeed, Jupiter's son Bacchus — a notorious party animal — was so moved by the tragic death of his beloved Carya that he transformed her body into a walnut tree.
Rome's mortal inhabitants believed walnuts were eaten during a golden age before humans transitioned to agricultural grains. The modern custom of throwing rice at weddings echoes the practise of Roman grooms who flung walnuts to their guests, invoking fertility and abundance for the future.
Fortunately for Greek farmers, Alexander the Great wasn't just a warrior king but a shrewd investor who decided to import the impressively large walnuts grown in Persia. For centuries to come, Greeks saw their own walnut harvest symbolising future wealth and success. One thousand years later, English traders would spread that harvest far and wide, but the walnut's rise to the top tables of Europe was offset by rumours of danger, sorcery and evil spirits.
Loved by the rich, a centuries-long disinformation-campaign in the middle ages made the walnut tree feared by the poor. European peasants — understandably suspicious of a natural world they barely understood — could hardly fail to notice that nothing grew beneath the shade of walnut trees. Precious cattle dozing in their shade became listless, which was interpreted as another ominous sign.
Although dark forces were suspected the real culprit was juglone, a chemical that walnut trees naturally extrude into the soil to reduce competition from other species, but superstition rushed in to fill the information vacuum. Witches, it was claimed, assembled under walnut trees to cast their spells, and demons could be heard bickering among the rustling leaves.
By contrast to the aspersions cast on the trees, the nuts themselves retained their popularity for all manner of purposes, including their facility as a witch-catching device. Placing a walnut beneath a suspect's chair would, it was claimed, result in paralysis, with a real witch unable to stand up again.
Walnuts were something of a chart-topper in the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, a theory developed around the idea that nature supplied animals, minerals and plants with visual clues to the useful services they could provide for humans. The startling resemblance between human brains and walnut kernels led old world observers to assume that eating them might boost the intellect or cure madness. Babylonian priests cheekily adapted this idea for social engineering purposes, by restricting walnut consumption to their elite masters alone. Distribution was forbidden among ordinary citizens, who might otherwise acquire dangerous ideas from over-stimulation of their brains.
As an early arrival in the annals of cultivation, no end of myths and legends feature in the walnut story, but their persistence in the diets of the health-conscious never waned. As for its remarkable brain-like appearance, although scientific advances brutally debunked the Doctrine of Signatures, nut-supporters had the last laugh when the walnut was revealed to be genuinely rich in neuroprotective and cognitive-enhancing chemicals. You can't keep a good nut down.
Researcher's note: multiple walnuts were consumed in the production of this article.
Always stay safe when foraging. You need to be 100% sure of your identification, 100% sure that your foraged item is edible, and 100% sure that you are not allergic to it (it is good practice to always try a small amount of any new food you are consuming). If in doubt, leave it out!
