Nuts! Beechnuts

General Anthony C. McAuliffe Week continues….We have two kinds of beech trees, genus Fagus, in our midst: the European F. sylvatica and the American F. grandifloria, with numerous cultivars, including cut-leaf and copper, and several subspecies to mix it up even further. Sylvatica was often planted in parks, where the smooth gray bark attracts the knives of little-minded people who wish to memorialize their insignificance. Beeches produce a fingertip-sized fruit husk with 1-3 small nuts. The nuts are an important food source for many birds and mammals. They are edible to humans, if you can find any nutmeat on them, and have even been roasted/ground for a coffee substitute among the java-deprived/depraved
This year’s crop looks heavy. For historical completists: “Beech-Nut” the brand was originally a ham-smoking business in upstate NY. I guess the pigs fattened up on beechnuts before meeting the smoke. The company make baby food today, and I understand they’ve just added an Organic Soylent Green line for the little ones.