I will wait for clues...or for Annette! :)

Cynthia

Good morning to you, too, Nancy. Those look really weird, but given the season, might the answer be something that you eat hot?

TM

Hmmm....they get hot before they are served, but are not hot, usually when you eat them. I find them quite fascinating. I can't remember which island I was on, when the guide came on the bus with one, and there was a little prize for whomever guessed correctly. The winner was born in Puerto Rico, so he had a bit of an advantage!! I used to really like them, but had a can that had gone off once, of course I ate it anyways - they weren't that bad - and got sick. Silly me.

TM, I suspect many people will be eating them with family and friends.

Nancy.

Yep, pretty sure I know what it is :).

Annette

I was thinking of chestnuts, although those blooms looked too fancy for a humble chestnut. Now I'm thinking of something along a similar line, but more suitably exotic.

TM

I do not recognize the blossom. Will await more clues.

This will probably give it away but....think nut, and look at the shape :).

Annette

Yep, the shape is a giveaway!! I was not sure whether you would know this one or not, Annette. Why did I question, lol. I must be nuts!!

Nancy.

Uh huh.

TM

Aha. My younger sister called them curly peanuts the first time she saw them. My favorites!

That is so cool!

Cynthia

Got it. These seem to be the ones that get picked out of mixed nut dishes at our house. DH's favorite.

Allergies have me sneezing. Need to take some meds as have a wedding to attend late this afternoon. Even the non-drowsy ones make me sleepy but yawns are not so loud.

Well, by golly, looks like an early end!!

The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a tropical evergreen that produces the cashew nut and the cashew apple. It can grow as high as 14 metres (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 metres (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.

The cashew nut is served as a snack or used in recipes, like other nuts, although it is actually a seed. The cashew apple is a fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liqueur.

The shell of the cashew nut yields derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to paints, and other parts of the tree have traditionally been used for snake-bites and other folk remedies.

Originally native to northeastern Brazil, the tree is now widely grown in tropical regions, India and Nigeria being major producers, in addition to Vietnam, the Ivory Coast, and Indonesia.

The true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, the cashew nut. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense the nut of the cashew is a seed. The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the better-known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs. People who are allergic to cashew urushiols may also react to mango or pistachio which are also in the Anacardiaceae family. Some people are allergic to cashew nuts, but cashews are a less frequent allergen than other nuts or peanuts.

So, for everyone:

And now, we will wait for Cynthia's trivia tomorrow. Sorry that was so easy, but I figured I'd give it a try.

Nancy.

Wouldn't have been so easy without the clue of the shape. In fact, I doubt I would have come up with the answer at all! Thanks for the stars. See you all in the morning

Cynthia

I agree with Cynthia. Wouldn't have gotten it on my own. The photo looks like a slug coming out of the fruit, ugh.

Went to a wedding tonight where the bride came down the aisle with her father and brother to the opening measures of Star Wars theme. Things were even more unusual from there. The bride and groom exited to "I walked 500 miles". doodle litotes.... Later the first songs of the dance music were 60s rock songs. Bride was up there twisting and doing the mashed potato and having a grand time. Groom no where in sight. They had a photo booth so took DH for a trip. He had never used a photo booth, deprived childhood, LOL. When the music got really loud we and the other old people headed for the doors.

LOL, Bobbie! For both the slug comment and the wedding description! I too thought the thing looked deformed-ha.

I guess those are the old standards for her-she had to have been born after Star Wars! ðÂÂÂ

Thanks again for the fun, Nancy.

Cynthia

Thanks for the stars and the fun, Nancy. Great question. I was starting to lean toward Macadamia nuts until Annette's clue came over the wire.

How weird that cashews come from those blossoms.

Until next week,

TM