Ireland’s Beechnut Bonanza
Beechnuts at the ready! Photographed during a Beech Mast in County Donegal, October 2022.
Whether the Beech ought to be classed strictly as a “native” tree of Ireland is not entirely clear. What is clear however, is that the Beech is superbly woven into our ecosystem here - as it is throughout much of Europe, Asia and North America.
Alongside the Hazel and the Oak, the Beech is the other great treasure trove of nut-based protein and fat, revealed as a gift in the autumn to the squirrels, boar, birds and other wild creatures - providing crucial nutrients for surviving the winter ahead.
For humans, the Beechnut is nowhere near as delicious as the Hazelnut - but it is more plentiful.
And the Beechnut is certainly more palatable than the Acorn which requires much more careful and laborious preparation before that can even be eaten.
You can see here what it looks like when the Beechnut is ripe and ready on the Beech tree in the autumn (mid-October this far north in County Donegal but could be as early as mid-September depending on location and conditions).
The beech nuts are encased in a prickly cask. When the nuts are ripe, this spiky shell opens and the nuts are liable to fall out with scarcely a tap. So you must be careful when collecting or you will lose them to the woodland floor.
Once collected, you can eat the nuts raw though some people say that they should be roasted because eating too many raw will make you sick. I have never eaten Beechnuts roasted but I imagine they would be quite delicious. Nor have I ever eaten so many Beechnuts raw to test whether it would make one sick.
Before you can eat them - raw or not - you need to remove the outer husk even after the nut is dislodged from its cask.
The stages are pictured below.
Beechnuts. Out of the prickly cask, still in the husk.
Beechnut. Out of the husk, ready to eat.
Every few years there is a mysterious event called a “Mast” or a “Mast year” where there is a gigantic glut of nuts. This can occur with acorns, hazelnuts, beechnuts and other nuts, where the trees - seemingly at random - all decide to throw off an overwhelming bounty. I was away for the most part of the time when the nut season was in full flow - so I didn’t get a detailed look - but it did look like this year may have been a Mast year in County Donegal.
Look at all that Mast! All the Beech trees seemingly laden heavy with nuts in County Donegal, mid-October 2022.
How about your neck of the woods - did you notice if it was a Mast year this year?
And have you tried Beechnuts before?
Often overlooked as a source of protein and fat - but so too are Beech leaves overlooked as a “spring green”, because their leaves are edible too and useful as a wild green for salads and cooking in the spring.
We’ll come back to the Beech trees in the springtime, then…