Almonds are a Fruit! - Green Almond Review - Weird Fruit Explorer - Ep. 107
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
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Almond (Prunus dulcis)
Origin: Middle East
Back after 5 months of traveling, this video marks my return to the USA. And I'm starting my North America adventures with a really interesting one.
In this episode I review the rarely seen Almond Fruit! Sold underripe almond fruit is nothing like the nut, but makes a delicious "vegetable"
In India, where I live, almond trees grow in the wild. They grow everywhere. You could just pick up the fallen fruits, eat the pulp on the outside and then smash the seed to get the almonds. It is fun actually.
sounds great!
It sounds so good!! I wish they had fresh almonds in the USA!
They do! I got these at a swanky ass NYC market.
those almonds are in the tropics at well we used to eat those a ton when i was younger, they skin is edible then it has a fibrous layer then you crack open the stone for the nut, the sweetest part of the nut is the fibrous layer especially if it is bright red as kids we chewed and sucked on that layer how sweet it used to be
Mani Kumar thats how we do it here in Jamaica
"green flavor" is a strangely recognizable description
it just seems to make the most sense. I guess I could say chlorophyll flavor :)
Reviewbrah...
Green Flavor, green beans, unripe or early peppers, also known as "grassy" flavor.
Have you ever heard of certain meat being “gamy”? It’s just something that’s understood ya know?
I got what he meant by green flavour right away, I hate it
Intro keeps me expecting an early 1980's educational film on an obscure local language. Then you show up in high def talking about fruit.
It reminds me of the opening of M.A.S.H for some reason
Hey 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 I'm sorry sorry 😞 😐 😢 😅 😬 😜 😞 I'm
Little house in the prairie. 😂
I think it also looks like an intro from an amateur zombie movie, from the early 80's.
@@iomeliora9430 the theme music is from an early '80s Italian horror movie called "The Black Cat."
You get these a lot in Nigeria, we had an almond tree in many of our homes, but we wouldn't eat them that green! They turn yellow and that's when they're best to eat as the flesh is softer, white and a lot more juicy.
I'm so glad your audio quality has so drastically improved.
For years I have imagined almond fruit as being simply a dwarf apricot. Today the subject came up in relation to the water situation in California and I decided to find out for sure, and was led to your excellent video, which answers all my questions and some I would never have thought of. Thanks, and I subscribed.
I have a almond tree and I never knew! Thank you
Fun Fact: Almonds are wild peaches! We know this because the plants are very similar and they cross together, and the crosses are more almond like than peach like.
Fun Fact #2: You can eat peach pits, they are more bitter than almonds but taste just like them.
Actually, CA almond trees are grafted onto peach trees. I live here in CA and my family are almond growers.
But why do they split open but peaches don't
@@SMCwasTakenAlmonds ancestors were probably regular fruits (maybe closer to apricots). Fruits exist to entice animals to eat them (with the seed). Since seeds are protected with a strong thick shell, they passing through animal guts undigested and leave with poop. That's how many plants spread themselves. But almonds are like "i need no animal, i can spread on my own". That's why the fruit is small and not sweet, since there's no point to invest energy in it. And when fruit becomes ripe, it opens up and releases the seed.
But noone can outgrow their ancestry, so that's why almonds are like that.
You have a third eyelid and a tale inside your body, and an almond makes fruits it doesn't need.
@@redpandah3309 I wonder what would happen if we crossed an almond and a peach fruit
Coming from the middle east, Palestine it feels really weird that people don't know about green almonds. They're DELICIOUS ❤ I always wait for spring just to eat green almonds 😍😍
Stateside all you get to hear is don't eat the almonds and apple seeds. You'll die instantly craze.
It's as if they imagine spies just carried a bag of almonds in a special bag in case they were caught and needed to poison themselves.
I'm sure the glass cut, bloodstream and probably reagent had to do with something. Never seen a special on it, but never looked as well.
Very interesting episode Jared. I have picked and eaten almonds from a tree in Spain and remember how much sweeter they tasted being fresh but I had no idea about the nut and fruit in its green state. Thanks for sharing.
+3enjoy3 I would love to try one fresh off the tree.
We Iranians love them. We eat it like that with salt like you said. We call it Chagale Badum.
Amir Soleymani interesting .. in Serbia, we call them Badem, very similar spelling
Yes and the Greeks.
@@antonisatwork and Turks. also green plums are our favorite
@@pralta4939 Yes
In India we call it "Badam".
Always wondered about this. Thanks! If I see some unripe “almonds” again, I will definitely give them a shot. My mom told me they were poison.
everything people don't normally eat is poison :p duh
Well almonds normally contain a tiny bit of cyanide so she’s technically not wrong
Bitter almonds are poisonous, maybe she got them confused.
I live in CA. My family in involved with agriculture and we are Californian almond growers. I never knew anyone would eat an almond like this but I always knew what it looked like when it was unripe.
CA produces 80% of the world's almonds. My grandparents own a almond processing plant and my aunt and uncle own a sucessful almond hulling and shelling buisness.
The whole process of harvesting almonds goes as follows...
We shake, wait one to two weeks, then we "sweep" the almonds (windrow). Then, we pivk them up. Very dusty job. I used to work the elevator where we dump almonds from a cart and dump them into a trailer. It's a very itchy job becuase all the fine hairs on the almond come off and accumulate. Then... they get sent off to be hulled, shelled, and processed.
The hulls are typically eaten by cows, turned into cow feed. The shells can be used as mulch. They are also finding many new uses for almond hulls including to generate electricity I think.
There's also a joke that when we shake the trees, we shake the "L" out of almond. Then we call them "amonds"
It's very popular here in Syria. they're tasty with salt :)
I really appreciate the education I'm getting by watching you!
I REALLY wanna try this. I’m a huge texture guy and I feel like this would just be amazing!
What a great concise piece of info. Thanks man.
I like green beans and I like almonds. I now have to try this.
I have never eaten them green. I traveled to Dominican Republic and there is a road that heads to the beach in a place called “Bani” , that these fruits are grown on both sides of the road. I used to walk to the beach and on the way there ,we would pick them up and eat them ripe and save them til we arrive to the beach and crack them open for the fresh almond. They are fantastic tasting fruit and very different from the taste you described.
You are probably talking about the indian almond
Your intro music reminds me of the 1970s, lol. Good times.
What's the name of the song?
@@pedrohenrique-kn5cy Its the intro music to film Black Cat (1981), and the music is by Pino Donaggio
not too long at all... always enjoyable watching your vids... I'm glad I found you fairly recently... I get to savor your past work...
In Israel we used to eat it before lunch after school because we were hungry and it grew on the trees. It’s awesome!
Try it with salt and olive oil.
you should have tried roasting it, that sounds like it would be pretty good :)
also maybe do more episodes with roasting or other ways to cook fruit, those are my favorite
+Oh dear Lots of cooking will be happening in a few weeks!
Picked a fresh walnut recently (looked similar to a lime in a couple ways), sliced off the outside layer which was covering the shell of it and cracked it open with a nutcracker after washing the shell for grip. It was delicious, juicy, soft, and i think it's actually how we're supposed to eat them to heal.
Even the membrane holding on the juice, which i think turns into that dry skin on them, was great!
Consider making a video about those as they're native to our states.
I don't think people should be unaware of these seeing as the inside of the shell looks like healthy bone.
Whoa dude, went overboard with the salt there. But it's cool watching someone enjoying being a human being.
The first question I have is, "Do you think that this could be steamed, then perhaps served with sesame oil and salt?"
That thing you are eating when it first pop up in the market in early season can pass the price of caviar for each pound of it. You can practically set any price you want for it and someone would pay that amount.
So interesting! I would never have known this. I love your channel ❤️❤️
Shame you can't get nice fruits in the UK. I've just discovered the purple mangosteen.. that's about as exotic the UK gets lol
+Simone Johnson That's a great one though, keep scouring the Asian markets. You might find some more!
Well I do try my best but they arnt very many of those! I do keep a look out though. I do love my fruit! :)
If u go east London ull find everything . It's my local area and the people there are southern Asian and exotic fruits are available widely
@@YJ-7 thanks for the tip, although East London is about 3.5 hrs drive for me. A bit far for a bit of fruit! 😂
But if I'm ever in the area, ill be sure to check it out 👍🏻
You do know almonds grow in UK right? I found a few ripe ones fallen from a tree.
Looks good
Their great with chicken fish n steak as a steir fry...or just as a snack with chili n lemon salt yummie ..or a a dried almond just amazing
Love exotic fruits. Nice find.
i am just eating it with salt now! delicious. This is how we eat green mango in senegal
I’ve had these in Sicily, they are very very nice with lemon, actually!
It looks so much like an immature peach. The juicy seed inside is like that too. I used to crush them when they fell off my parents tree. I learned later that you can eat them, but I’ve never tried. Apparently some people pickle them.
You need to wait until it gets a little ripe and turns "red" and the flesh tastes very good and you can still get an almond from it, very common in India
There is also another variety of almond tree, at least here in India, that they use for planting on the roadsides. It produces a small kinda semi-soft almond looking nut. But it produces a bright red fruit, although the the taste isn't anything to mention about. Just children collect the fruit.
BTW please tell me the name of the theme music in this video. I really like it, makes me think of Malaysia.
That's Interesting, I'll have to look next time I'm in India :). The theme is from the 1980s version of the horror movie "the black cat"
Nice.
Hello I really liked the video. I just bought a home 2 years ago with 2 almond trees this year is the first year we have almonds so Im excited. Thanks a lot!
intro felt like it came out of the 70's
You can also pickle them or honey/candy them to preserve them and they are so freaking good, both ways, sweet and savoury.
Great video. I never knew these things about almonds and I eat them almost everyday!
Awesome. I didnt know this about almonds.
The fruits looks very similar to the plums my parents and grandparents had growing in their yards growing up, albeit green. Google tells me plums and almonds belong to the same genus, I never knew that. Cool!
I used to work in a park in Ann Arbor Michigan that was frequented by the Middle Eastern community and I was constantly picking up the skins and uneaten flesh from these
So cool to learn this after starting my new lifestyle of only eating real foods from the earth only thank you so much
One of the peach trees at Roger's Community Garden turned out to be a seedling peach, non-grafted. The fruit was basically a tennis-ball in size, shape, and fuzz, about half-way between a real peach of a nice variety, and the green fruit of the almond that you show. I ate it, and the sour and bitter flavors overwhelmed the little sweetness that there was -- and this after a BLISTERING hot Summer that would have ripened any peach! SO foul. Did NOT want your green almond near my face.
If you want WEIRD GRAPES, swing by the Munson memorial vineyard in Denison Texas in August. T. V. Munson collected ALL the weird native American grapes and bred with them. By all accounts, a tasting of his collection is a real walk on the wild-side of weird American flavors.
+mark miner
Here's an account of a trip to Denison.
vintagetexas.com/blog/?tag=munson-home
And here's a cheat-sheet for the wacky flavors you'll find:
V. vinifera -- wine-y
V. aestivalis -- spicy
V. labrusca -- Welchy (methyl anthranilate)
V. cordifolia -- herby, mint & dill
V. lincecumii -- blackcurrent/burning electrical insulation
V. candicans -- peppery, tongue-burning
+mark miner Very interesting! Next time I'm in that area I'll check it out. :)
I love your reactions while trying out the fruit. Real
FUNNY TOWARDS THE END
I'm actually eating a bunch right now . It's sooo good
Dulcis, in the Latin name means it is sweet. Cultivated almonds are rather awesome in all form, but the wild forms are toxic with bitter cyan taste . Walnut and almond both have husk, but almond actually part of the Prunus genus, that include cherry, peach, nectarine. We used to preserve green walnut, and green almond, before the pit hardens. It is indeed tasty with salt, but even tastier in a sweet syrup or just in sugar. Mind me, prunus species are stone fruits with drupe flesh. Almonds are one of the first cultivated fruits and were popular snacks through history. If the preparation is right, it can be the Food/Snacks/liquor or brandy of Gods.
+Angela Goodwin always insightful Angela. I'll actually be doing an episode discussing wild almonds and apricot kernels. It was going to be in this episode, but was running too long. What amazes me is that eating cyanide filled bitter almonds is supposed to be good for you. Do you have an opinion on this? I remain skeptical of anything that can kill you, being good for you.
Weird Explorer Markus Rothkranz on TH-cam eats them. He might even sell the kernels on his website.
@@WeirdExplorer you mean the amygdalin/Vitamin B 17 scam? Yeah that's a scam.
Last year I tasted some green (but ripe) almond fruits from one of my trees and some of them had a nice yellow juicy pulp, better than others... similar to peaches, but they were not sweet... anyway, it was interesting. I really didnt knew that some people used to eat them so unripe!!! fascinating...
Music choice iconic as ever :)
I ate these in Turkey. They sell immature green almonds and they are eaten whole with salt. It’s a good I could develop a taste for if I had access to them
I love boring but the intro is awesome ! Great show
almonds are in the peach family! amazing! it has similar seed structure as the peach.
This intro music sounds like something from the original Wicker Man. Willow is about to lure Sergeant Howie in the Green Man pub.
Do you know the name of the song?
I am from middle east and I confirm all we really love them but you also have to try to put them in fridge for 2 hours they must be cold
Also we eat ripe apricot
And check out pistachio
The opening music reminds me of so many filmstrips back in the day.
Used to eat these green and recall it tasting like an unripe apricot, with a neutral gel , to kinda milky flavor...yum...
Here is a little tip for eating these properly: put a handful in a bowl of cold water and then let them soak for about an hour. Then while still in there grab them in your hands and rub them together gently for a about a minute. The fuzzy texture will be gone almost entirely. Take them out, rinse them but don't dry. Back in the bowl put no more than a small pinch of salt and shake them around. Take the stems off and pop the whole thing in your mouth.
You could also chop these up and add them into your fine chopped salads like tabouleh or shirazi salad.
Remember these are only available from early February to late April, don't miss your chance to buy some.
Also if you are into pickle making, these are great for pickling along cucumbers and carrots for some extra crunch.
In Turkey, they are called Yesil Badem, and are often eaten while drinking raki.
The unripe almond almost looks like pistachio. Neat information.
A amêndoa é do gênero Prunus, o mesmo dos pêssegos, nectarinas, ameixas e cerejeiras. O fato é, que a amêndoa perdeu em sua trajetória evolutiva o seu fruto e sua mucilagem, ficando apenas a semente, que é bem semelhante ao caroço do pêssego
I always thought raw almonds were poisonous
I was really hoping your video would come up for almond fruit :)
These are very common in Mediterranian Turkey, but the most wholesome part is that little kids earn pocket money out of almonds by selling it to those who relax on the beachside. Their scale is usually "1 full of fist is 1 Lira!" and considering the size of their fist, it is so cute!
I get them at a local middle eastern market in California. I love the lemony flavor, and prefer them to regular mature almonds
In China, both apricot seed and almond seed are commonly called "杏仁“, and people regularly confuse them.
Love these... probably prefer the immature plums. In Turkey some kids were also eating green peaches which were good too. The ones I have tried here are usually bitter, but not always.
Cool, thanks.
I love those growing up in Vietnam it was very common
looks very similar to baby green mangos!
Thanks for this video. I have learned something new today.
super interesting.
That looks so good
anyone knows the intro song ? this guy has amazing taste both in music and fruits !
Main theme to the horror movie "the black cat" :)
@@WeirdExplorer I would die if I couldn't find it
I used to have a Tropical Almond (Terminalia cattapa, unrelted to true almonds) on my compound when I lived in West Africa that would have green fleshy capsule fruits that ripen to yellow-green with an "almond" seed at the core that you'd smash against some stones like a real almond and it would have a fleshy yellow rind... i've never eaten the flesh of the fruit or seen any of the locals eat them and I've wondered why. I regret not trying them because the flesh smelled sweet, better to err on the side of caution. Wonder if youll ever do a video on that fruit. The "almonds" do taste really good, superior even, especially cooked. They can be eaten raw as well and it is equally great.
Just found these in a mediterranean market. Thanks for the review, I wasn't incline to eat the rind because of the fuzziness,but I also felt this was very expensive if you eat just the seed. Mine were a little less fresh than yours, but your description is totally accurate. I personally found that the salt helps to cut the "green" and sour flavour a lot, and I preferred them that way. Thanks a lot for your channel, trying fruit is a hobby I enjoy a lot, and sometimes it's frustrating to just don't know what to do with a weird fruit once you're back home.
I saw a tree , waited until ripe, tried breaking with my trainer, won't break Left it where I found them. In Tunisia, the locals eat these. Also found cob nut, squished a few ,nothing inside but I see the squirrels go for them. What's with that? I had issue with this while growing up Terminalia catappa - or we called it 🔨 nut as one is needed to break it and very disappointing inside.
This is different from the almond in West Africa. In West Africa, you pick almonds when they are ripe. You eat the fleshy part and then crack the inner shell seed open to reveal the seed which is also yummy. I wish they have those in the US.
Looks just like an underripe peach or apricot. And it sounds like it tastes like it too
How weird and fascinating... when u bit into and i heard the crunch, i thought u were due for a dentist visit! Gotta try one
thank you from Japan
Amazing information thank you.
Probably best resembles the ancestor of all Prunus fruits
They look tasty, I wanna give it a try...
Where I lived as a kid there were tons of almond trees, I would always collect a bowl of them and eat the fruit cause the middle part isn’t good raw
It's funny, around here most of nuts (walnut, almond, chestnut, cashews, etc) are called "dried fruits". Even peanuts, which aren't actual fruits.
We typically like a bit less ripe almonds and damn your vid makes me want se rn...
Some rn*
Used to have an almond tree right to my house. Never knew if they were edible though.
Try Spanish limes(mamones) or cashew fruit! A lot of people don’t know where cashews come from lol. (First video I see if you so if you’ve done it I’m sorry!)
Yep I've done both. they are very interesting fruits! :)
It seems to be similar in texture to preserved red peach, however preserved red peach is distinctively salty and sweet.
We eat these dipped in sea salt (and a bit of water to stick) and afterwards
drink with beer 👌
The middle part is usually pretty bitter and as a snack we skip on the center by eating around it.
Btw the salting part is usually done by putting a bunch of these in water and a decent amount of salt and let it sit for like an hour
oh interesting, I'll try soaking them next time
I'm fully willing to spend money to hear the intro song
Ive had the red version of them in Mozambique (apparently their name is Terminalia catappa). I dont remember them tasting very good, they were bitter tasting I think me and my mates were more concerned with cracking them open for the nuts.
Wow...I didn't know that. The more you know. I thought it just come dried
What was the music in the intro? I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Awesome
Thanks
I live in Lebanon and we love these here. Watching this video makes me want to be in early summer again cause I could eat a ton of these! It's fuzzy on the outside like a peach, because they're from the same family. Apricots too. And you can eat unripe apricots the same way you'd eat almonds, but they're much more sour. Delicious!