Can You Eat Conkers? | BBC Gardeners World Journal

What are conkers?

Conkers are the nuts of the horse chestnut or conker tree. True nuts, they sit inside a spiky fruit casing. After they fall to the bottom in autumn their shells usually cut up to disclose the shiny brown conker inside. Its shine fades with age.

The sport of conkers has been fashionable amongst youngsters for nearly 2 hundred years, since horse chestnut bushes have been extensively planted in parks and streets. ‘Conkers’ is performed in pairs, utilizing the nuts threaded individually on to string or shoelaces. Every participant takes it in flip to attempt to hit the opposite’s conker and the winner is the one who breaks their opponent’s conker, so no items stay on the string. The identify ‘conkers’ might have derived from the phrase ‘conk’ which is slang for ‘to bash’ or ‘hit’, and likewise for an individual’s head, or it might have come from the phrase ‘conqueror’ or winner. The World Conker Championships, which have taken place yearly in Northamptonshire since 1965, have raised over £400,000 for charity.

What is the distinction between conkers and candy chestnuts?

The nuts of the conker tree and candy chestnut tree are each wealthy darkish brown in color and produced inside inexperienced outer casings, however there the similarity ends. Horse chestnut shells have brief spikes throughout, and the nuts are spherical and shiny. Candy chestnut shells have many advantageous spikes, and every case homes two or three, flattened nuts. The 2 bushes are unrelated – the botanical identify of the horse chestnut or conker tree is Aesculus hippocastanum and the candy chestnut tree is Castanea sativa. The candy chestnut is edible and extensively used for savoury stuffing in addition to in different dishes, and is scrumptious to eat roasted. Neither tree is native to the UK, though the conker tree has been extensively planted since its introduction from the Balkans over 4 hundred years in the past.

Are you able to eat conkers?

Conkers have a bitter style and uncooked conkers are poisonous if eaten, as they comprise the glucoside aesculin. Whereas conkers might be eaten when cooked, the style shouldn’t be nice. Conker flour was generally made in Victorian occasions. This concerned breaking apart and cooking the conkers to make a advantageous crumble, after which leeching them in water for a number of days to clean out the aesculin. Within the residence, conkers can be utilized to maintain garments moths away – merely place recent conkers within the wardrobe and they’re going to emit moth-repellent chemical compounds as they dry. Conkers additionally comprise soap-like chemical compounds and are typically utilized in shampoos and bathe gels.

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Do conkers have a profit to wildlife?

Conkers are eaten by some mammals, together with deer and wild boar, however are poisonous to different mammals together with canine. The flowers of the conker tree, borne in Could, are nectar-rich and supply meals for a lot of bugs. Some species of moth lay their eggs on the leaves, significantly noteworthy is the horse chestnut leaf-miner moth, Cameraria ohridella, which makes brown ‘mines’ within the leaves and provides the tree the looks of getting into autumn senescence early. These moths and their larvae present meals for insect-eating birds.