sugar syrup, and eaten as a sweet.
The distinctive aroma of hazelnuts comes
from a compound dubbed filbertone
(heptenone), which is present in small
quantities in the raw nut, but increases 600-to
800-fold when the nuts are fried or boiled.
Macadamia Nuts Macadamia nuts are
newcomers to the world’s table. They come
from two evergreen tropical trees
(Macadamia tetraphylla and M. integrifolia)
native to northeastern Australia, where the
aborigines enjoyed them for thousands of
years before they were noticed and named by
Europeans (for John Macadam, a Scots-born
chemist, in 1858). Macadamias were
introduced to Hawaii in the 1890s, and
became commercially significant there around
- Today Australia and Hawaii are the
main producers, but their output remains
relatively small, and macadamias are
therefore among the most expensive nuts.