Recommendations wanted: Sweets
l4...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
A friend of mine is bringing back candy ("sweets") from the British
Isles after the holidays. Any recommendations on good kinds that are
hard to get in the US? (I tried "Bassett's Jelly Babies" last year and
liked them a lot). Thanks,
-Doug Elrod (L4...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu, L4...@CORNELLA.BITNET)
Francis Muir
A friend of mine is bringing back candy ("sweets") from the British
Isles after the holidays. Any recommendations on good kinds that are
hard to get in the US? (I tried "Bassett's Jelly Babies" last year and
liked them a lot). Thanks,
(1) Brighton Rock (or * Rock)
(2) Edinburgh Rock
(3) Gob Stoppers
(4) Turkish Delight
Fido
Ray Dunn
5. Fry's Cream (chocolate bar)
6. Tunnock's Snow Balls (soft marshmallow in chocolate shell with coconut).
7. Rowntree's Fruit Gums (even though they've changed their shape!!!!)
8. Lee's Macaroon Bar (maybe only available in Scotland)
9. Polo Mints (much better than Lifesavers)
10. Cadbury's Flake (scrumtious chocolate stick).
11. Aniseed Balls.
12. Pontefract Cakes (licorice).
13. Cadbury's Bournville Chocolate bar (plain dark chocolate).
14. Tunnocks Caramel Wafers (Chocolate biscuit bar).
15. Penguins (Chocolate biscuit bar).
16. Jacob's Club (Chocolate biscuit bar).
sorry.... drool..... I just..... can't.... go.... on.....
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Matthew Huntbach
>good conker was worth about three PCakes. It must be conker season right
>now, can we have a report on quality and quantity please?
>
It's way past conker season now. Quantity was extremely high
this year, as it was with all fruits and nuts (something to do
with the hot summer). I don't know about quality though.
Matthew Huntbach
Melinda Francis
Doug Elrod writes:
A friend of mine is bringing back candy ("sweets") from the British
Isles after the holidays. Any recommendations on good kinds that are
hard to get in the US?
First of all, Doug, let's get one thing straight. It's sweets ("candy"),
not candy ("sweets"). OK?
12. Pontefract Cakes (licorice).
This is the liorice par excellence. It is the most smooth and chewy, and
has none of the powderiness that some other masnufacturers have. Bassett's
Allsorts are OK, but chiefly because they are allsorts. But there is nowt
to beat a good Pontefract Cake. Not wanting to start another of those
ludicrous pronunciation flame wars, but I suppose that we all realize that
Pontefract is pronounced PUMFRIT. No kidding. An idiosyncracy of PCakes
is that they are very temperature sensitive. Rather like good wine, they
should be kept and eaten at cellar temperature. They harden and soften very
quickly away from the optimum temp. Keeping them for several days in a
pocket of one's shorts resulted in a black mess with the consistency of
SilliPutti. Among the street-wise on the fringes of Wimbledon Common, one
good conker was worth about three PCakes. It must be conker season right
now, can we have a report on quality and quantity please?
Fido
Post Scribble. I see that the screaming Tories had the sense to Rally
Round young Majer. Interesting times.
Nax mendler
>8 6. Tunnock's Snow Balls (soft marshmallow in chocolate shell with coconut).
>8 7. Rowntree's Fruit Gums (even though they've changed their shape!!!!)
>8 8. Lee's Macaroon Bar (maybe only available in Scotland)
>8 9. Polo Mints (much better than Lifesavers)
>8 10. Cadbury's Flake (scrumtious chocolate stick).
>8 11. Aniseed Balls.
>8 12. Pontefract Cakes (licorice).
>8 13. Cadbury's Bournville Chocolate bar (plain dark chocolate).
>8 14. Tunnocks Caramel Wafers (Chocolate biscuit bar).
>8 15. Penguins (Chocolate biscuit bar).
>8 16. Jacob's Club (Chocolate biscuit bar).
The British have never recovered emotionally from food rationing, even today,
most settle for the cheap and cheerful. Consider chocolates.
Cadburys may be OK for the kiddies, but their chocolate pales (good word, that)
compared to continental chocolates, yet they continue to get away with pumping
air into milky chocolate to produce sundry bars. Indeed, the current
TV adverts for Wispas flog them based on the fact that there's so much air in
a bar! The flake (#10) is a variation on this. The only thing memorable about it
was its classic adverts (ppphhhwwooaarrrgh). The Bournville (#13) is
mediocre -- a "dark" chocolate bar with only about 33% cocoa mass.
Taste test it against the standard Lindt bar (50%), for example, and see the
difference.
There are exceptions, however, like some chocolate mints. Not those "After Eights",
which are rather middling. I'm referring to the intense choco-mint experience
you can only get from a _Bendicks Bittermint_. Its constructed like a Peppermint
Patty, but the similarity ends there. First, the chocolate. Incredibly bitter.
95% cocoa mass -- yes, 95%, and part of the remaining 5% is coffee extract!
Second, the mint centre. Just as intense: as soon as you walk into a room, you
know if someone's bit into one! The adverts claim that on their own
either of these things would be inedible, but put them together and you have
one potent after dinner chocolate. And hardly kid's stuff...
Scott Larnach
> ... candy ("sweets") from the British Isles ...
How about "Duncans" products. Duncans Original hazelnut chocolate is
the best (IMO, anyway). No more Galaxy or Whole Nut for me.
The stuff is made in Edinburgh and I think is only generally available
in the Edinburgh area. But maybe some specialist shops elsewhere stock
it. Keep an eye out.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
(It seems I have at last found a use for auto-repeat)
Scott
Nick Rothwell
> 12. Pontefract Cakes (licorice).
I think the proper spelling is Liquorice...?
What's the derivation of this word, anyway?
Other suggestions: Dolly Mixtures (fairly common, like Jelly Babies, I
suppose); Love Hearts (if they're still being made).
Anyone for a Toot Sweet?
--
Nick Rothwell, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh.
ni...@lfcs.ed.ac.uk <Atlantic Ocean>!mcsun!ukc!lfcs!nick
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
"You ain't seen nothing yet. I can take this floor out too, no trouble."
Chris Cooke
TOFFEE!!
Go to a branch of "Thorntons" and you'll get great toffee.
(where else - comments?)
An American friend who visited me here commented on how
much more chocolate people seem to eat over here. The
first time she went into a newsagents shop she was
astonished by the amount of chocolate on display.
Most of it's pretty good, although some will be familiar
to US people (possibly under a different name).
Tim Oldham
Tots. Wine Gums (Maynards).
Go to a decent newsagents and get a whole lot of 1/4 lbs of sweets,
and a whole lot of counter brands. You can't lose.
Oh, and get some Victory V lozenges while you're at it.
Tim.
--
Tim Oldham, BT Applied Systems. t...@its.bt.co.uk or ...uunet!ukc!its!tjo
Well, you'd have a corporate siege mentality, too.
Mick Washbrook
> It's way past conker season now. Quantity was extremely high
> this year, as it was with all fruits and nuts (something to do
> with the hot summer). I don't know about quality though.
>
> Matthew Huntbach
Maybe I've come in at the end of the article, but I thought conkers
were poisonous!?
--
Mick Washbrooke mi...@autodesk.com
Love is the Law,
Love Under Will.
Francis Muir
Matthew Huntbach) writes:
It's way past conker season now. Quantity was extremely high
this year, as it was with all fruits and nuts (something to do
with the hot summer). I don't know about quality though.
Maybe I've come in at the end of the article, but I thought conkers
were poisonous!?
For the uninitiated, conkers are horse chestnuts. sure they're poisonous.
You don't eat 'em, you play conkers. Drill them down their symmetry axis,
and thread string through. Knot the string (the proper knot is critical),
and leave about 18" to play with. First person holds the string on his
conker so that it hangs freely. Second person takes string of his conker
in left hand and conker in right and deals person A's conker a Godalmighty
whack. Change roles. carry on until one conker is destroyed by coming
off the string. Do I have it right?
Fido
M E Fletcher
>
>The British have never recovered emotionally from food rationing, even today,
>most settle for the cheap and cheerful. Consider chocolates.
>Cadburys may be OK for the kiddies, but their chocolate pales (good word, that
>air into milky chocolate to produce sundry bars. Indeed, the current
>TV adverts for Wispas flog them based on the fact that there's so much air in
>was its classic adverts (ppphhhwwooaarrrgh). The Bournville (#13) is
>mediocre -- a "dark" chocolate bar with only about 33% cocoa mass.
>Taste test it against the standard Lindt bar (50%), for example, and see the
>difference.
I can hardly let this gross slander pass. Having sampled French, Belgian and
Swiss chocolates I can honestly say that none of them are a patch on the
ambrosia from Cadburys. I dislike any plain chocolate, it is bitter and
leaves a strong unpleasant aftertaste. Only the deliciously sweet milk
chocolate of Cadbury's can possibly be consumed by the mouthful. For best
results I recommend serving at room temperature, as it is starting to melt.
Perhaps washed down with a glass of cool milk to increase the amount that
can be consumed before nausea sets in. As to the point about some chocolate
having air in it, I agree on principle - less chocolate obviously - but
the air does seem to make it more tasty than a solid block, perhaps it's
just imagination.
Matthew Fletcher
PS Has anyone mentioned Kendall Mint Cake yet? I haven't seen any around
for a good while but it's delicious - solid sugar with a minty taste.
Mike Bremner
>For the uninitiated, conkers are horse chestnuts. sure they're poisonous.
>You don't eat 'em, you play conkers.
Alternatively, as suggested by correspondents in the "Independent"
recently, you can use them as a more fragrant alternative to moth-balls.
Sounds like a good idea so, next autumn, I'll be out under the spreading
chestnut trees fighting with the local young lads (it's a male-dominated
sport) for some of the crop.
Matthew Moore
>
>I think the proper spelling is Liquorice...?
>
>What's the derivation of this word, anyway?
>
>Other suggestions: Dolly Mixtures (fairly common, like Jelly Babies, I
>suppose); Love Hearts (if they're still being made).
(I saw some Lovehearts in the last year or two)
RTFM Chambers Dictionary :
Liquorice, licorise : a papilionaceous plant (Glycrrhiza
glabra)... its long sweet root ... blah blah ... medicine and
sweets ... (... a corruption of Greek glykyrriza -glykus
sweet, rhiza root)
Peter Trei
>OK, so what's everybody's favourite recipe for that most desirable of
>playground commodities - the conker one that appears to be made of
>pre-stressed concrete, needs steel cable for thread and smashes to
>teeny-weeny little bits every other conker in the school?
Well, when I was a wee lad at boarding school the common wisdom
was that baking was the hardening method of choice - and the best
baking method was "pocket baking", where you simply kept them in your
hip pockets for several weeks. Body heat would dry them out, and skin
oils from the constant handling would prevent their becoming too
brittle. Hugely bulging hip pockets were almost a standard part of
the schoolboy uniform in the autumn.
One time I tried putting some in my families furnace room and
leaving them there for a year, after soaking them in olive oil. This
also worked pretty well. The best I ever got was a 56er.
>Jeepers, Worthington Minor, I really can't think of a better
>subject for this newsgroup! Can you?
No, but we may want to expand it to other bits of schoolboy culture.
Anyone else remember some of the specialized volcabulary, such as:
Quiz?/Ego!
swiz
buggy
exeat
chit
prep
fag (NOT a sexual reference)
Peter Trei
Edgarley Hall &
Millfield School
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George Michaelson
>Alternatively, as suggested by correspondents in the "Independent"
>recently, you can use them as a more fragrant alternative to moth-balls.
...unlike the blooms which smell distinctly like catspee after a few days.
-george
--
G.Michaelson
Internet: G.Mich...@cc.uq.oz.au Phone: +61 7 377 4079
Postal: George Michaelson, Prentice Computer Centre
The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD Australia 4067.
Jack Campin
> Oh, and get some Victory V lozenges while you're at it.
I've been on the net for about six years now, and this is the first posting
ever to literally make my stomach heave. Learned reaction. These things
contain, of all substances, diethyl ether. I've been anaesthetized with it
several times. Each occasion producing two days of continual vomiting.
Even a tiny whiff of it makes me gag. I'd expect anyone else who's been
etherized to react similarly.
For the rest of you - what on earth is the attraction in this chemical as a
flavouring? Why not throw in a bit of butyric acid, butyl mercaptan, and
alcoholic extract of burnt cockroach while you're at it?
--
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Bruce Munro
>
>Massachusetts is a great place to find conkers. The quality is pretty
>high but best of all, as no-one around here seems to know how to play,
>the supply is plentiful for those that do. There is a little dispute
>about whether the cumulative rule should be applied, ie if your tenner
>beats a fiver, does it become and elevener or a sixteener?
Definitely cumulative! You merely add the value of the vanquished
conker to your victorious one. So in your example above that would be
a fifteener. I remember having the school champ once that got into the
hundreds, it was an unprepossessing lumpy little thing, but it retired
undefeated after beating all the other top conkers. When I went to get
it out for the following season it had gone all soft and mouldy! I was
devastated! Never found another conker to come close, spent the
remaining seasons propping up the bar of the tuck shop boring all and
sundry with tales of past glory. Sob.
Cheers,
--
Bruce Munro. <br...@tcom.stc.co.uk> || ...!mcsun!ukc!stc!bruce
STC Telecommunications, Oakleigh Rd South, London N11 1HB.
Phone : +44 81 945 2174 or +44 81 945 4000 x2174
"There are no strangers, only friends we don't recognise" - Hank Wangford
Dick Jackson
-No, but we may want to expand it to other bits of schoolboy culture.
-Anyone else remember some of the specialized volcabulary, such as:
-
-Quiz?/Ego!
-swiz
-buggy
-exeat
-chit
-prep
-fag (NOT a sexual reference)
I was pondering on this very topic only yesterday, at about 11:27 am to be
precise. The Quis/Ego thing (as G. Bush might say) we used before we had
the latin to know what the words mean.
But we would also use the construction "Bags I ... (go first,e.g.)"
Does anyone know the origin of "bags"?
Dick Jackson
J R Evans
>For the rest of you - what on earth is the attraction in this chemical as a
>flavouring? Why not throw in a bit of butyric acid, butyl mercaptan, and
>alcoholic extract of burnt cockroach while you're at it?
Sounds tasty! How do I get my corner shop to stock 'em?
Russ (who actually *likes* Victory V lozenges, in small quantities)
Peter Scott
-No, but we may want to expand it to other bits of schoolboy culture.
-Anyone else remember some of the specialized volcabulary, such as:
-
-.
-.
-fag (NOT a sexual reference)
Depends which school you went to, doesn't it?
:-) :-) :-) :-)
--
This is news. This is your | Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech
brain on news. Any questions? | (p...@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov)
mck...@ul.ie
> t...@its.bt.co.uk (Tim Oldham) wrote:
>> Oh, and get some Victory V lozenges while you're at it.
>
> I've been on the net for about six years now, and this is the first posting
> ever to literally make my stomach heave. Learned reaction. These things
> contain, of all substances, diethyl ether. I've been anaesthetized with it
> several times. Each occasion producing two days of continual vomiting.
> Even a tiny whiff of it makes me gag. I'd expect anyone else who's been
> etherized to react similarly.
For Victory-V without ether, try Fishermans Friend lozenges.
>
> For the rest of you - what on earth is the attraction in this chemical as a
> flavouring? Why not throw in a bit of butyric acid, butyl mercaptan, and
> alcoholic extract of burnt cockroach while you're at it?
>
Oh yes, I remember those. They were called IMPS. Little seed sized
black things in a tiny paper envelope. I often wondered what they
contained. We didn't have food labelling when I were a lad, fifty
year ago. Life was richer, more exciting, somehow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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also Sysop of STYX RBBS Limerick +353-61-332229 FidoNet 2:253/171
George Michaelson
>But we would also use the construction "Bags I ... (go first,e.g.)"
>Does anyone know the origin of "bags"?
I posit that the hunting "bag" or take, in the sense of "winning" something
would apply here.
A good "bag" is succeeding in slaughtering 1/2 a hundred idle pigeons or
a couple of senile tigers. Clearly the prototype wielder of the white
mans burden inculcates the desire to present such "bags" to his memsahb
by "bagging" the right to suck up to teacher, or go first in the game
or whatever.
-George
Nicholas J. Simicich
or by someone who has absolutely no taste.
Personally, they seem to like so much adulterant in their chocolate,
I'm given to wonder if they like chocolate at all. I suspect that
they actually like sugar and fat, with as little chocolate adulterant
as is required to make consumption of same socially acceptable.
--
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - n...@ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318
Tim Oldham
>t...@its.bt.co.uk (Tim Oldham) wrote:
>> Oh, and get some Victory V lozenges while you're at it.
>
>flavouring? Why not throw in a bit of butyric acid, butyl mercaptan, and
>alcoholic extract of burnt cockroach while you're at it?
Yeah, they make you feel really quite strange. Very interesting taste.
For best effect, put about 3 or 4 in your mouth and crunch as quickly as
you can without swallowing. Swill around in your mouth using your
saliva, and breath deeply. Lovely.
Niclas H. Lewis
>
>Yeah, they make you feel really quite strange. Very interesting taste.
>For best effect, put about 3 or 4 in your mouth and crunch as quickly as
>you can without swallowing. Swill around in your mouth using your
>saliva, and breath deeply. Lovely.
>
On the subject of sweets that make you feel strange, I remember
when I was a mere lad eating this weird stuff called 'Space Dust'. You
emptied a satchet of this evil stuff into you mouth and as it contacted
your tongue it started fizzing violently and popping about. I seem to
remember that it was banned because kids were having 'Space Dust' eating
contests and exploding.
It was a phenomenon in Cardiff anyway.
Nic
Jacqueline Kowtko
le...@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Niclas H. Lewis) writes:
>
> On the subject of sweets that make you feel strange, I remember
>when I was a mere lad eating this weird stuff called 'Space Dust'. You
>emptied a satchet of this evil stuff into you mouth and as it contacted
>
> It was a phenomenon in Cardiff anyway.
I assume you mean Cardiff, UK. There's been similar candy in the US:
Zots (hard candy with fizzy middle) and Pop Rocks, as well as more
dusty products.
I particularly like the local boiled sweets in the UK that come in
tins with the town (and sweet's) name on it. Can't think of any
offhand, though.
--
Jacqueline Kowtko |Human Communication Research
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Pete Young
> For Victory-V without ether, try Fishermans Friend lozenges.
Hellish is right. Mike Harding on Fishermans Friend:
"Fishermen don't actually eat these you know. They just throw a
couple of handfulls over side and all the fish jump on deck and
surrender".
____________________________________________________________________
Pete Young pyo...@axion.bt.co.uk Phone +44 473 645054
British Telecom Research Labs,SSTF, Martlesham Heath IPSWICH IP5 7RE
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[Alan M Stanier]
}In article <16...@paperboy.OSF.ORG> s...@mysteron.osf.org (Simon Patience) writes:
}>
}>Massachusetts is a great place to find conkers. The quality is pretty
}>high but best of all, as no-one around here seems to know how to play,
}>the supply is plentiful for those that do. There is a little dispute
}>about whether the cumulative rule should be applied, ie if your tenner
}>beats a fiver, does it become and elevener or a sixteener?
}
}Definitely cumulative! You merely add the value of the vanquished
}conker to your victorious one. So in your example above that would be
}a fifteener.
So how come scores didn't rise into the millions? Present conkers would
have scores adding up to all the conkers ever broken in the past, which
must be a colossal score. (pace ones retired unbeaten, which I recall
as being very rare)
--
Alan M Stanier | tel +44 206-872153 | Carpocratian Heretic and
al...@essex.ac.uk | fax +44 206-860585 | Oral Gratification Specialist
Francis Muir
So how come scores didn't rise into the millions? Present conkers would
have scores adding up to all the conkers ever broken in the past, which
must be a colossal score. (pace ones retired unbeaten, which I recall
as being very rare)
I don't think you know your conkers. They wear out. Partly from battle
scars, but mostly from attempts to endow them with extraordinary strength
through chemical and thermal means. In my experience these always failed.
It is this Grand Metaphor that may account for their popularity.
Fido
Ray Dunn
>I don't think you know your conkers. They wear out.
...and the ones that don't dry-up into that great trouser pocket in the sky
before the next conker season comes around.
Conkers are played at most for a couple of weeks each autumn before the
supply dwindled away. I can't recall ever seeing one which purported to be
a last year's model.
--
Ray Dunn. | UUCP: r...@philmtl.philips.ca
Philips Electronics Ltd. | ..!{uunet|philapd|philabs}!philmtl!ray
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St Laurent. Quebec. H4M 2S9 | FAX : (514) 744-6455 TLX: 05-824090
[Alan M Stanier]
}I don't think you know your conkers.
Harrumph!
}They wear out. Partly from battle
}scars, but mostly from attempts to endow them with extraordinary strength
}through chemical and thermal means. In my experience these always failed.
Yes, they do wear out. But everyone I knew kept unbroken ones from last
year to break against their own new ones, so their new ones started with
a positive score. But not a cumulative score. I still think cumulative
scoring would lead to astronomical scores.
Nor-Azlan Nordin
Francis Muir
This is a test!!!!! Sorry guys.....
And you fail
Fido
b.banerjee
Hi,
Would someone clarify what ``official'' conkers are?
When I was in boarding school -- this referred to a game played
with wild chestnuts suspended on a string. Contestants alternating
hitting their chestnuts.
This seems similar to what was discussed (based on context). Is this
so? Or did one use some other object native to Britain?
-- Binayak
P.S. The school in question was in India, in the foothills of the
Himalayas.
Robert Chambers
are conkers and are also poisonous.
Methods we used to harden them included vinegar bath, cooking in an oven,
furniture polish/oil (supposedly to make the skin supple and shatterproof),
and leaving in a dry box for the winter. I don't remember which worked best,
it was sort of trial and error, since we didn't do any genetic mutations
we never did cross a horse chestnut tree with a brillo pad and make a
steel conker.
Robert
Francis Muir
Would someone clarify what ``official'' conkers are?
When I was in boarding school -- this referred to a game played
with wild chestnuts suspended on a string. Contestants alternating
hitting their chestnuts.
This seems similar to what was discussed (based on context). Is this
so? Or did one use some other object native to Britain?
P.S. The school in question was in India, in the foothills of the
Himalayas.
Your understanding is exactly right. Are Wild Chestnuts native to India?
Is it possible that the East India Company or, later, the India Office
introduced the Wild Chestnut to add a touch of home and tradition to the
transplanted Public School?
FraggerMagger
mck...@ul.ie
> we never did cross a horse chestnut tree with a brillo pad and make a
> steel conker.
>
> Robert
I remember (Brockenhurst, 1945-51) a legendary metal conker,
sopposed to have been cast by somebody's father and painted
to resemble the real thing. Our school best was a pitful scrap
of dried conker flesh, a "93er", retired undefeated.
I am not clear whether the scoring was cumulative.
Trevor Kirby
In article <91004.10...@CUNYVM.BITNET>, RM...@CUNYVM.BITNET
(Robert Chambers) writes:
>it was sort of trial and error, since we didn't do any genetic mutations
>we never did cross a horse chestnut tree with a brillo pad and make a
>steel conker.
>
>Robert
Some Idiot at my school tried painting a ball bearing brown and hoped
no-one would notice. I once tried a steel reinforced conker (using panel
pins), it fell apart first hit. Drilling holes and injecting epoxy
resin, now theres an idea.
And in answer to the spine millington thread
what do we do now, what do we do now, what do we do now
How about return to sorento (3rd class)
I must go down to the sea again
to the lonely sea and the sky
I left my vest and socks there
I wonder if they are dry
Trev (Ye broggeled thrice twee)
Edward C. Regal
and sawdust, the whole being packed around the conker in a small tin.
It kept my best one in good shape for almost two years.
Remember what fun it was trying to burn the string hole through without
frying your fingers on the nail (or maybe ice pick, like I used)?
Ed
--
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* "Alll you people are soooo superstitious......." Firesign Theatre *
* A strange thought remembered by Ed Regal e...@cipric.mn.org *
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J Wexler
wrist watch, clockwork, not quartz, waterproof to huge depths, on a
comparably solid steel bracelet, which is his normal everyday timepiece.
He declares - and I believe him - that this watch has been champion
conker in at least three seasons. Question: how enthusiastic do you have
to be in order to use your expensive watch as a conker, or (on the other
side) to submit your potential prize-winning chesnut to repeated
assaults by a heavy lump of angular steel?
John Wexler
Frank Maloney
[re conkers deleted]
>
>Your understanding is exactly right. Are Wild Chestnuts native to India?
>Is it possible that the East India Company or, later, the India Office
>introduced the Wild Chestnut to add a touch of home and tradition to the
>transplanted Public School?
>
do know that various chestnut species are found throughout
the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the Chinese and
Japanese chestnuts as well as the American chestnut and
horse chestnut or buckeye.
Edible chestnuts are of the genus Castanea in the beech
family. The American chestnut is on the edge of extinction
because of the introduction of a European blight, but
American stock is being grafted on to Chinese or Japanese
rootstock, which is blight-resistant. Almost culinary chestnut
is from Europe these days, but the east Asian types are
also eminently edible, but smaller.
The horse chestnuts belong to the family Hippocastanaceae,
genus Aesculus. There is an Asian horse chestnut, which is
sometimes cultivated in the U.S. The buckeye is a horse
chestnut native to the Ohio valley. Horse chestnuts are not
edible.
Just thought you'd like to know.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
"The dim boy claps because the others clap."
Richard Hugo, "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field"
David Brooks
|> Edible chestnuts are of the genus Castanea...
|> The horse chestnuts belong to the family Hippocastanaceae.
|> genus Aesculus...
Just to add a little to Frank's erudition:
Two main species in Britain: the horse chestnut (conker tree), Aesculus
hippocastanum, and the sweet chestnut, Castanea sativa.
The red-flowered variety of the Aesculus are all scions of a mutation
found in the 1890's.
Hippo means horse, of course, and sativa means sweet. As to the
obvious link with the castan- root, the Spanish word castanuelas
(castanets) derives from the use of a pair of chestnut shells held in
the palms for musical purposes. I doubt they were the Aesculus
variety, tho', as it would be fairly painful.
--
David Brooks dbr...@osf.org
Systems Engineering, OSF uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
"Home is the bright cave under the hat." -- Lance Morrow
Ray Dunn
<60...@microsoft.UUCP>, fra...@microsoft.UUCP (Frank Maloney) give detailed
scientific info on the various varieties of chestnut tree.
Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, or from scientific detail to
trivia, I presume there are some of our readers who don't know the reason
why the *horse* chestnut is so named.
Pull a leaf and it's stalk away from its branch and examine the base of the
stalk. You will see that not only is it shaped exactly like a horses hoof,
but the shoe and the nail fasteners are also clearly represented.
So the tree's common name was given after horses were regularly shoed with
iron shoes and nails. When was that? Has this been going on since before
"The Archers" first moved to Ambridge, or is it a more recent development?