Berries & nuts

Berries & nuts
Sweet berries and crunchy nuts are a delicious combination, and great for your health, too.

Berries and nuts are a match made in heaven, and while not often thought of in the same vein, both are fruits. A berry is a small flesh fruit with its entire ovary wall encasing seeds; blueberries, red currants, gooseberries and grapes are included.
Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries do not fit this botanical definition, and are actually aggregate fruits consisting of many ‘drupelets’ (flesh surrounding a hard case of seeds). Nuts are generally a dry fruit encased in a shell, with the exception of the brazil nut (a seed) and the peanut (a legume).

Tips & facts
• Almonds belong to the same family as apricots, plums, cherries and peaches.
• Traces of almonds were found in the tomb of Egyptian pharoah Tutankhamen.
• In China, hazelnuts have been cultivated for almost 5,000 years.
• You can judge freshness of pistachios by colour: young kernels are bright green and turn yellow/brown as they age.
• In England, it was once believed that eating the first blackberry spotted growing each year would banish warts.