Beech Nuts - Harvesting, Peeling, Roasting and Tasting
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- Опубликовано: 28 окт 2022
- On our recent autumn break in Shaftesbury, we found a lot of beech nuts. Let's take a close look at them, taste them, and cook a delicious autumn themed meal.
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They are slightly poisonous to people if you eat them raw in larger quantities.
Fortunately that's really unlikely to happen
Anything (even water) is toxic at the 'right' dose.
You probably shouldn't eat them at all, if you are pregnant!
Who here is pregnant? I
@@Absolite1232 just some additional precaution, slightly badly phrased
My grandmother told me that during the first world war, she and her siblings foraged bags full of beech nuts. Her parents had an old little handcranked press, and they used it to press the oil out. Fat was very scarce during those years, and this was a very welcome addition to their meager rations.
Me and my parents used to forage and eat beech nuts just for fun when I was a kid. But there always was a setting point when I did not like it anymore. I guess that is a natural protection against overdose.
I love that you're on holiday and give us the privilege of letting us tag along with you. Your videos were one of the things that helped me through my chemotherapy treatments this last year. Thanks for your outstanding content Mr. Shrimp. 😊
I once, in my student days, helped a good friend move house. After a morning of heavy lifting we found ourselves quite famished and with the limited stock in the kitchen cupboards I created something eerily similar. It consisted of sweet potato, chorizo, red peppers, baked beans, spices and cheese all roasted in the same tray for ease, I dubbed the dish "Jonny's Orange Mess" and it's "bean" a staple in my house for years. But now, due to allegations of colourism and nutrionalism I've been forced to add spinach.
I probably owe my existence to beechnuts. The region where my family is from was hit pretty hard during WWII and the crop yield for the first two years after was far too meager to sustain people, so they resorted to foraging. Beechnuts where one of the main food sources. My granddad and his siblings had to spend their afternoons after school shelling nuts. Apparently the oil was even used in lamps.
Also, the reason we might be seeing especially many beechnuts this year might be the heatwave we had in summer. Beechnut yield is usually higher after very dry summers.
Wow, what an interesting story! Not sure if your family loves them or hates them by now
When he was talking about how the amount of work required to shell them basically nullifies the nutrition you get from them my immediate thought was that if you were dependent on eating them you would have the children shell them.
Thanks for sharing your family's war stories. If there would ever be a new war over here, we won't be able to resort to foraging because of how city's green "should look like".
My family, too. Although my mother said they roasted theirs and ground them for flour. I could be mis-remembering, though, (certainly acorns were ground) but sadly she's not around to ask anymore.
LOVE the kinder eggs in an egg box traveling herb kit!! 😂
Herb Surprise!
I love how people made food with what they had on hand for years and called dishes by names that had very broad, regionally different ingredients and then at the turn of the last century a bunch of stuck up restaurant chefs wrote some books and now we have stupidly rigid definitions of what foods are.
Sure...
Stuck up restaurant chefs.
Not globalisation, American neocolonialism, laissez-faire capitalism, industrialisation, etc.
No, the chefs are the problem. Hahahaha.
oh, globalization is the culprit, isn't it?! Excuse me while I enjoy heaps of cheap food, including bananas and tangerines in a warm bright house a couple of degrees south of arctic circle
Whoa...I had Beech-nut branded chewing gum as a kid, but never stopped to think what a beech nut actually was. Nice! 😳
Oh! Bucheckern - haven't thought about those in ages. We had a large beech tree in our elementary school's yard. When the time of year was right, we would go get some during break time. I used to bite down on the shell and break it to make it easier to peel. Very tasty, good memories ^^
Your content lately has been even better than it normally is, really enjoying these types of videos where you forage and cook or do a project like the clay pots. Super interesting stuff.
Beech Mast used to be collected for processing into oil, so maybe the oil content is quite high & the small movements required to shell them probably don't use many calories but then there is the walk & all the bending down involved in collecting them. Walking tends to only use calories slowly but bending down & standing up again does use a few.
I imagine they could probably be raked or swept up from bare earth, but yeah. Maybe in days gone by picking them up was a job for the kids, who don't have so far to go to reach the ground
When I saw the title of this video, it reminded me of the vending machine outside a local shop that sold Beech Nut chewing gum. The memories from 50 years ago, also include Old English Spangles, Vesta curries, Horlicks tablets, Sweet Cigarettes, oh and my Dad's Woodbines.
Those Beech nuts look so fiddly, no wonder humans have tended to leave them for other animals. Dinner looked delish!
My favourite gum growing up, you sparked memories for me.
The Beech Nut chewing gum machine was the first thing that came to my mind too!
Also wondered if anyone else remembered Beech Nut chewing gum. How on earth did they arrive at that name?
How in the world anyone came with that????!
My first thought too.
I used to eat these as a kid! But then I couldn't find a thing about human beings eating them, and was almost beginning to wonder if I had been mislead. I loved them raw as a snack while running around in the nearby country park.
Edited to add: if you're eating them raw, you can crack them between your molars (pointed ends upright) and it's instant gratification. Much faster in terms of gathering calories. Obviously not for cooking.
You having to cut the food with your pocket knife reminded me of when i first moved into my own place and all it had was a blunt bent serrated steak knife, ended up doing all my cooking for the first couple nights with a box cutter lol
As a child we collected the beechnuts from a huge tree adjacent to my grandparents house. My Granma would roast some for us and season with salt and white pepper. It was always a competition between us youngsters and the squirrel population. Great video, reminds me of happy days.
What a beautiful life you two seem to have. Love these videos. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Shrimp.
Completely agree 🤍 absolute partner life goals
It's great being in your company for a few minutes, Mr Shrimp. Your videos take me away from the pressures of modern life, and awaken something primordial, giving me a feeling of peace.
This brings back so many childhood memories for me :D in the village i grew up, we had an ally of beeches and many more around our church. i spend half of my days in autumn gathering beech nuts (or Bucheckern in german), acorns and sweet chestnuts (roasting on a little fire in the fields).
Much to the dismay of my mother, i realy didn´t wanted to eat dinner these days. :D
Now, excuse me, I feel like finding some beech trees in my now slightly larger hometown. The old NATO HQ here will have some, but tresspassing is strongly forbidden. Looks like a nice daytrip to find alternatives nonetheless :D
And as always, great work! Love the passion and the variety of every video :)
What a lovely story! 😍
Agreed. Also I kinda share your story. I always enjoyed a few at my nearest playground.Never bothered cooking though... guess ill have a try.
Also germany ;)
I, too, remember foraging for beechnuts with my parents on Sunday walks in autumn. I can't remember, if we ate them or just used them for decoration, though.
Same for me. On my way back home from school I always picked up some Bucheckern and ate them directly after opening. I liked them very much but was always too lazy to pick large amounds.
Beech nuts remind me of a day in primary school, when me and my friends were sitting underneath a beech tree. A bunch of squirrels started climbing on the tree and eating the nuts, and they dropped the shells down and they pelted us!
Your channel is always so ... earthed and calming AND informative. You are the counterweight to all those clickbaiting weird grimace making people who are just yelling around in their videos getting nothing substantial done at all. Thank you for your work and keep it coming. :)
Great comments. Completely agree
Strange how the cheap can opener is always the one that works.
Love watching you cook. It's really impressive how you have enough knowledge in your head that you can wing it with more success than failure. I definitely want to try an autumn casserole!
I wonder if enough people enjoyed beech nuts, would humans have selectively bred them to be easier to open or higher yielding.
Without a doubt. If people like them enough for the fruits, nuts, ease of growing, yield, resistance to disease, and fast to grow, you can be sure they will be selectivly bred.
I think the 40-60 year wait before it starts producing nuts may have hindered that, as you would need to selectivly breed them over multiple generations.
I think people are to impatient and just chop them down before that for firewood, smoking things or furniture :p
@@WhiffenC It's their fault for not containing alcohol or psychotropic substances. That is usually a big motivation.
Pitch them as baby chestnuts and breeders will have a go.
@@pattheplanter In North America, we have chinquapins, which are literally baby chestnuts. I am unaware of any breeding with those, not even for resistance to Chestnut Blight, which is a big deal for the American (tree) chestnut (which was nearly wiped out by that disease). Admittedly, at least half the interest in tree chestnuts is as a (rot resistant) timber tree. Chinquapins usually only grow to 20', and are thus useless for construction timbers though they should be fine for firewood and if the wood was especially colorful/patterned (haven't seen it myself, but I doubt it) could find craft use in turnery (e.g. for making fancy pens and tool handles) or veneers like holly, another small species (which has nearly white heartwood, good for contrasts in marquetry).
@@graealex 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 literally laughed out loud. It’s true though!
Really interesting. I'm out to forrage some this weekend.
We have also used acorns for ersatz coffee with great success.
Note: don't use a non stick pan for dry roasting. It is easy to overheat the Teflon and liberate toxic chemicals.
your videos constantly attract such lovely and interesting comments. genuinely such an overwhelmingly positive space (if you ignore any bots that slip through the filters)
In The Netherlands we are not allowed to pick nuts, mushrooms and that kind of food because of the wildlife. It is their food for winter they say. So if you get caught you get a fine.
I am inspired to try making ravioli stuffed with a butternut squash and roasted beech nut stuffing. Will have to see if I can find some beech nuts!
Sounds delicious 😋 😍
Gutted, seem to have missed the window of opportunity for harvesting beech nuts 😔
My Grandfather used to forage those beech nuts right after WW2 to make a beechnut cake from them. Food was rationed and expensive back then.
TIL beech trees produce edible nuts! I use beech timber in my work and this is the first time I've heard about them. Thanks for teaching us new things as always Mr. Shrimp!
My mom used to collect them in the 1940ies. Before she was allowed to play, she needed to fill at least one tin. But she also remembers how good they tasted. Only to be topped by the Chocolat British Ally soldiers gave her after the war.
My mum did, too. Although I don't know if she had such a strict routine. ;) Did your mother say what they did with them? I seem to remember my mother saying they were roasted and ground for flour (maybe I'm mixing it up with the acorns, though). But most of the people commenting say they pressed them for oil.
Like so many others, I first found your channel thru the food challenges. Once hooked, I found myself rooting for my favourite in the condiments test. I love the diversity of subjects you cover. By far, the most interesting and diverse youtube channel I have come across. Highly addictive, and highly recommended!
The baked spuds looked perfectly done. I love seeing you cook its quire relaxing. Thanks for the entertainment Mr Mike 😁
Beech nuts were an occasional treat I foraged for myself when I was a kid. I used to eat any I could find on the local common but I never got more than a handful at a time.
13:30 is why I always take my own can opener to holiday lets, knives ditto.
I used to eat them as a child. Found quite a few this year but haven't shelled them. I put all the Autumnal stuff in a home made pottery dish. Sycamore, hazelnuts, acorns, horse chestnuts, chestnuts, lichen, Rowan berries all picked up off the grass from the side of a busy main road. I just enjoy the colours.
I like that 👍
Beautiful
Ahhh the great “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!” -John Keats
I love the Fall! The colors, the tastes, the smells, the temperatures that just makes a person feel so good all over!!! And the holidays, Fall breaks, Halloween, Fall festivals, Thanksgiving…
So interesting you chose beech nuts as your topic!!! I remember the old Beechnut brand of gums and candies… And I assumed they were poisonous I guess. But alas they can be ordered! It reminds me of eating the hickory nuts from a tree at my grandmother’s house as a kid! Also not in many stores, but yes those can be ordered too! The shells were so hard! Lol! And yes, in Kentucky, we can even order prepared acorns! Lol! Yes I wondered in general if there were any nut you could forage in the New Forest, great story!!!
Beech nuts? Delicious! P.S. Seems to be a good year for acorns (never seen so many) and sweet chestnuts, too: round here in Herefordshire picked kilos of chestnuts in minutes.
I foraged some sweet chestnuts last year from the woodland surrounding me. The only good nuts were firmly stuck inside their evil, spikey fruits. This year there's an insane amount of good, large chestnuts just sitting on the ground. Totally opposite situation to last year!
How did you know where to go? I've never seen sweet chestnuts in the wild 😔😔😔
@@AlissaSss23 you just maybe come across them sometimes hiking
@@zeez3139 well, I live in London and don't drive but you never know 🙂
Hi Shrimp, I've been stuck abroad for three years because of covid and Brexit, and when I'm really struggling with homesickness, which is often, your videos are the only things that really help. Thanks so much.
16:00 - to hell with the breakfast sausage sandwich 😂😂
I like the "herb kit" using kinder Surprise plastic shells and a container made with colorful tin cans at 10:42
Yay!! Waking up on the first day of the mid-term break to a new Atomic Shrimp video!! 😀 What could be better?
Looks really good. I think, locally to me, it's mostly an empty year for the husks (as I've only seen one or two crushed ones on the road sporting any nut meat within). Still, I think it's worthwhile having a look around every year, and peeling them while watching the evening DVD or RUclips in the early morning before sunrise. I think they'd make an interesting nut butter too.
I love beechnuts --- partly it's the serendipity of just finding them when you're out and about, because, as you say, nobody sells them. I was a little disappointed you didn't try toasting them with the shell on. I have a feeling they might pop open. Clearly I'll have to collect some and try it.
Oh wow, I remember these from my childhood. No idea who taught me they're edible or where I picked them but I vividly remember peeling and eating them. Nice video as always!
Thank you for sharing this, I enjoyed this little peak into your day.
Loving the videos, my favourite watch when I finish work to wind down ☺️
Hope you’ve had a lovely getaway
That meal looked absolutely delicious! Perfect colours fitting for that time of year 🥰
About as close as I'll get to a holiday dinner this year is watching you cook this dish up. Looks wonderful. Cheers.
Yum! Makes me hungry. Watching other people prepare food helps me to prepare food for myself too. Guess I'm having some casserole tomorrow
always love your content, so positive, creative and fun.
During the 2nd World War the German half of my family collected beech nuts, which were roasted and then ground for flour. Of course, it wasn't just them and it wasn't just then. Whenever food is in short supply it's good to live near woods. 👍
Very lovely, thank you for this. Love the focus on the season. : )
so excited to watch this, after learning previous generations used them for making flour when in need i wanted to look into more beech nut recipes
Funny you said 'I hope this has been interesting' at the end, as thats exactly what I was thinking. Google, in its infinite wisdom brought me here, not sure why, but Im glad I watched. Thankyou
I was told that people used to make coffee out of beech nuts in times of need. I don't know if you like coffee, but maybe this would be a future project for you: making coffee substitute out of things growing in your area.
Interesting idea!
Shrimp - no need to get down on the lighting - the meal looked absolutely delicious! Thanks for sharing, you've got my tummy rumbling!
I'm mind blown by the potato opening technique.
What a pleasant way to start a Saturday: making french toast and listening to Mr. Shrimp make an autumnal meal.
I love those! We had amazing ones in the garden when I was a child!
Great video, I enjoyed it. I have 200 trees on my property and half of them are beech trees.
Sitting here watching with my family, looked down at my lap top see my two year old had fallen asleep an hour before bedtime to your soothing voice haha. Love your channel brotha, keep up the good work, and make sure that you aren't fiddling with your household normality engine!
The dish you made looks incredibly delicious!
High quality content as usual!
I've never tried beech nuts, but would love to now.
In our area, pecans are quite popular and are grown commercially. Can't make it through the holidays with large quantities of pecan and pumpkin pie!
We loved these as kids. We would always eat them raw, much to our parents chagrin, but none of us ever fell sick. Of course, considering the hard work that goes into peeling them, we never ate enough to get a reaction of any kind
Dear Mr (Autumnal Gastro) Shrimp, I am new to your feed and feedings and a vegetarian but loved this idea. Just time maybe to harvest some beech nuts still (maybe not time to shell them though). I like your recipe. We discovered a derivative on holiday also and it has become a favourite. you can substitute the sausages for vegi ones (Quorn standard sausages keep their firmness) and surprisingly diced feta works really well. I will now also have a go at keeping the beans in their saucy world instead on draining :-) Many thanks and hope you had a great holiday. Winston
It would be interesting to see you try lots of different methods of shelling them to see if any are less fiddly. Roasting first even though you don’t think that will help, boiling, hitting gently with a rock or something to crack, using an actual nutcracker etc.
Went to the park with family the other day and was eating these wondering if the Atomic Shrimp ate them. The answer comes as I shave my head ready for a party.
I've never seen anyone slice-pinch a baked potato. Can't wait to try it. Great Vid!
I've seen these many times while mountain biking but never knew they were edible. I'll forage some next time i'm out and try them.
Wonderful roast
What a wonderful way to start my day! I am so enamored with your spice kit. Why wouldn't you bring it on vacation. 😍😍
Beach nuts were the first thing I ever learned to forage, and my hit rate with getting any over the 10 years I've been going is just under 3 a year.
Perfect start to my Saturday morning!
I can only find beech nuts in my local naturist resort. The biggest issue is they're full of sand and the blokes attached to them don't seem to like it when I put them in my basket.
Same with alot of nuts. I usually stick a film on and get on with cracking hazelnuts. At the end of the film I've got a half decent bowl and a few aching fingers. A good harvest can take me most of the year to bother getting through, but beautiful when toasted. Will have to try beech nuts now.
You always make such nice-looking dishes. I'd love to come over for dinner 🙂
Really love this channel ❤️
The slab of butter on the jacket taty made it worth every second ...yes man ☝️👌
I'd eat that feast in a heartbeat, has a real nice english feel to it which makes me nostalgic.
Wow, I never thought about eating them, my local park is primarily beech trees so I'll have to give them a go!
They remind me of pine nuts, in terms of being fiddly and intermittently empty. And yet those are incredibly popular. I would love to try some beech nuts!
The dish looks good. I'd eat it. A cold beer with would be great. Enjoy your trip
I've never had such large ones, but I loved the taste as a child. I guess I should try them again :D
Love autum in the country. Looked tasty
Looks delicious even without the beechnuts. Have noticed this year how there is an abundance of beech nuts on the trees this year on Cannock Chase where we live very close too. I might have a go at harvesting a few.
You should! Don't let them go to waste
A truly weird combo, I would have put these in an Christmas cake but I love you for these outrageous ideas anyways.
i swear no matter what you cook you make me hungry me and my GF watched all of your pound for a day challenges and i feel that i needed to constantly eat while watching cus even if i just had a full meal made me want to eat lol
🤗🤗🤗
As you've touched on considering how dry it's been this year. Acron trees chestnut trees all seem to have had a glut of seeds this year.
I used to collect to make drop earrings. Paint with clear nail varnish to preserve. i didn't know you could eat them.
Food as earrings
I love the taste of Autumn & thanks Atomic Shrimp 🤗👍
I really love your content!! Love from Argentina :)
My mouth is watering that looks so tasty
I've always fancied trying roasted beechnuts, ever since I read the entry in the book 'A Country Harvest'. Never been able to find enough to ever try it, though. Richard Mabey, in 'Food For Free', is a bit dismissive of it as a nut, preferring to concentrate on the extraction of beech oil from the nuts.
the perfect accompaniment to my work breakfast break
At the end of the video the food really looked delicious indeed. Might try that one too.
Looking at how you were shelling them, I think if you put a handful in between two layers of leather or thick cloth, like gloves, and pressed while rolling them back and forth, you might be able to crack the shells and loosen them. Like getting the chaff off wheat. And by rolling them, I don't mean enough to crush. Just wearing gloves and a little pressure along with the few of them in the hands. However, I would need to actually have some to practice with first.
Mast Years are pretty neat from a predation standpoint. By skewing years of high seed production, the squirrel population is unable to take advantage of the increased food supply and rise to a carry capacity. A genius way some species avoid extreme predation.
Lovely cassoulet-adjacent dinner!
Living in America, I don't know if we have the same Beeches. The ones near me have seeds that I would say taste a lot like sunflower seeds. They were harder to peel roasted because you have to crack them open. With a specialized tool they might be easier to crack, but with bare hands they are definitely easier to peel raw.
I’m surprised you didn’t try roasting them first. Hazelnuts are very easy to peel once rgeyve been roasted … maybe the same for these? (Same goes for peeling shelled peanuts). Thanks fir these superb videos. My favourite discovery of 2022!
Definitely easier to peel after roasting, the shell gets very brittle
Bloody hell I searched up beech nuts an hour ago, and you posted this an hour ago. Shame the beech trees around my area aren't dropping anything this year. There's been a bunch of acorns, mushrooms, and whatnot at least.
Looks delicious
Hi mike,
Love the video.
Wondering if beechnuts in a plastic bag and lightly rolled with a rolling pin might be enough to crack the shells….leaving you to squeeze them out.
Either that, or a food grade rock tumbler? 😅