Annual cereal plant (Hordeum vulgare and sometimes other species) of the family Gramineae (grass family), cultivated by humans probably as early as any cereal.
Bean, name applied to the seeds of leguminous trees and shrubs and to various leguminous plants of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) with edible seeds or seed pods (legumes).
Common name for certain members of the Polygonaceae, a family of herbs and shrubs found chiefly in north temperate areas and having a characteristic pungent juice containing oxalic acid.
The seed of a legume, Vicia faba, eaten as the whole pod when very young (up to 8 cm) or as green unripe oval-shaped beans from more mature pods (up to 30 cm).
Flour, finely ground, usually sifted, meal of grain, such as wheat, rye, corn, rice, or buckwheat. Flour is also made from potatoes, peas, beans, peanuts, etc.
an erect grass, Oryza sativa, that grows in East Asia on wet ground and has drooping flower spikes and yellow oblong edible grains that become white when polished.
Tall, coarse annual of the grass family, somewhat similar in appearance to corn (but having the grain in a panicle rather than an ear) and used for much the same purposes.
Originally grown as a food crop for animals, it is increasingly used for human consumption in cooking oils and margarine, as a flour, soya milk, soy sauce, or processed into tofu, miso, or textured vegetable protein.
Teff (Eragrostis tef) is an annual grass that is grown as a grain crop in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia) at the higher altitudes with higher rainfall. It is a type of millet.
The "nuts" of sweet-almond varieties are eaten raw or roasted and are pressed to obtain almond oil. Bitter-almond varieties also yield oil, from which the poisonous prussic acid is removed in the extraction process. Almond oil is used for flavoring, in soaps and cosmetics, and medicinally as a demulcent.
This three-sided nut (Bertholletia excelsa) with a hard, dark shell grows in bunches of from one to more than two dozen nuts inside coconut-like shells (called cocos in Portuguese) on evergreens that tower over the Amazon rain forest.
A kidney-shaped nut that grows in a double shell at the end of a strongly sweet-smelling, pear-shaped fruit, the cashew (Anacardium occidentale) is a very unusual nut.
Members of the beech family, chestnut trees are native to the world's temperate regions, and there are several trees of the genus Castanea that bear nuts enclosed in a prickly burr.
The term “hazelnut” has been used so interchangeably with “filbert” that the two are sometimes listed as synonymous in dictionaries - and no wonder, because they appear as practically identical, have the same sweet taste, and grow on shrubs or trees that are members of the birch family.
Always in demand even though they contain more fat and calories than any of their counterparts, macadamia nuts are actually divided into two species, Macadamia integrifolia and M. tetraphylla.
Common name for the Cruciferae, a large family chiefly of herbs of north temperate regions. The easily distinguished flowers of the Cruciferae have four petals arranged diagonally ( "cruciform" ) and alternating with the four sepals.
A North American nut (actually a kind of hickory nut) sometimes said to be a native of Oklahoma, the pecan (Carya illinoinensis) is really indigenous to an area extending from the U.S. Midwest throughout the South and Southwest into Mexico - a region where it still grows wild today.
A native of central Asia and member of the cashew family, the pistachio nut (Pistacia vera) has been cultivated for some 3,000 years and has a long history of popularity in the Mediterranean world.