[Sca-cooks] Hazelnut a new world food?

[Terry Decker]

Hazelnuts (or filberts, from the Middle English "philber" after St. Philbert
whose feast day is in August when the nuts ripen) are the nuts of hazel
trees (genus Corylus) and are primarily from the European species, C. maxima
and C. aveliena.  C. americana is the New World hazel.

Bear

>Regarding nuts, I'm prepared to wager hazelnuts in some species or another
>are Old World.  I could well be mistaken (and often am), but I believe
there
>is reference to hazel trees in Celtic mythology. If you've got the tree,
>you're going to have the nut.
>
>Could this be a case of a food being available on both sides of the
>Atlantic?
>
>Berelinde
>