Hey all, I'm Chinese and i've been eating the ginkgo nut all my life and I love it. This is how it works. DO NOT eat the inside "stem" or germ of the nut. That is where the toxin is at. We remove it with a tooth pick. Next, one common way to prepare it is to caramelize it with some sugar. It is then added to a desert. It has a chewy texture, and when lightly sweetened, it tastes great. I can't say anything about the nutrition though. It is prized for its texture and flavor, not eaten primarily for its nutritional value. Hope this helps.
I eat them, I don't prep them. Only watched mom do it. If you google "Chinese ginkgo nut dessert" or something similar, you will find lots of recipes and pictures. When you look at the pics carefully, you will notice you are all "broken" at some place, indicating the stem / germ was taken out. Folks normally buy them with the shell, and dried. I dont know if you need to dry them first before preparing. That's the only form I am familiar with.
It reminds me of the background intro music used at the beginning of the movie they showed to girls in school talking about periods. I saw it in the 80s-but it was clearly produced in the 70s.
When i was about 12 i went to an edible forest with my dad and i found some ripe ginko and i asked the guide if you could eat the fruit, he said yes. i proceeded to take a bite of the fruit and was immediately hit with sharp sourness followed by astringency then followed by half of my tongue going numb for the rest of the day after having the fruit in my mouth for a fraction of a second.
@@WeirdExplorermaybe there are different varieties, I was under the impression it's "edible" in the same way noni is. Albeit instead of the cancer curing claims you have "you could die if you eat too much" lol
The guide was a sadistic monster and knew better. Ginkgo fruit smells horrendous. The nuts when cleaned don't have an objectionable smell. The flesh around the fruit after it rots on the ground for several days smells and tastes bad due to the presence of two volatile compounds in the sarcotesta- butanoic and hexanoic acids. They are moderately strong irritants to skin and induces severe eye irritation and severe respiratory symptoms if inhaled. The smell is that of rotten butter and rank male goats combined. My personal memory of the smell was of fresh cat feces, a lot of it , which smells horrible. Many ancient plants have draconian ways to protect themselves and their young. Ginkgo has outlived all of its predators over time by adaptations such as insecticide crystals in the wood, inedible pulp around the nut and nuts that decrease vitamin B6 in the eater. Eat too many nuts and the predator either gets sick with neurological symptoms or dies.
it smells nothing like parmesan to me. To me it smells like the worst vomit imaginable...truly disgusting. I don't know how he can be indoors with those fruits. NYC tries to plant only male trees but occasionally a female gets planted and it will stink up the whole block in fall
Augustus Supremum Yes they are really vile, and if you touch it, that smell really sticks! They’re one of the most ancient trees still living and we’re around when the dinosaurs were. Trying to imagine what animal found those fruits attractive.
Fun fact is that ginkgo trees (like many other trees) do not have sexes set in stone. Different branches on a single tree may be of different sex, or the whole tree can change sex entriely. So despite the landscapers' efforts, ginkgos do whatever they want 😛
Yew trees can do that too. But in general these types of trees keep the same sex all their life. But sometimes half the street of ginkgo switches to female and we have a very smelly autumn ahaha
Named male varieties of ginkgo are grafted onto another ginkgo - male or female. Sometimes, when a gingko of fruiting age gets plowed into by a vehicle which happened right next to Boise Library's (Ada County, Idaho) parking lot, the surviving tree puts up shoots from the stump. If cultivar branches are grafted onto a female, the female stump will put up female branches, eventually flower and fruit if there are male trees nearby. Ginkgo trees don't arbitrarily change sex. I will say one thing about Ginkgo trees - they are tough. That poor 8" diameter tree except for the stump and the later branches coming from the stump was absolutely demolished. It is rare that ANY tree can come back from an injury so severe. Ginkgo's really have a will to live!
Ah, the vomit tree! I once went to a funeral at a funeral home that had a female ginkgo next to the door, where the dropped fruit got stepped on--and they didn't clean it up. It struck me that allowing such a stench at a mortuary was a particularly bad idea.
@@WeirdExplorer It was a gift that kept on giving--we tracked it into the house on our shoes. Not the memory we were expecting to make. Fortunately, the deceased gentleman would have laughed about it, so we did. =)
@@applegal3058 I can assure you, it IS terrible. A pavement covered in fallen fruit which others have stepped on, is something you go out of your way to avoid. If you step on fallen fruit the foul smell will cling to the soles of your shoes. To me, it very much smells of vomit, and something rotting. Not surprising, since gingko fruit flesh (not the seeds though) contain butyric acid, which is what's found in vomit, I believe. So you'd want to avoid handling the fruits with your bare hands. They cause skin irritation.
Oh. My. God. I've eaten these all my life and only now did I find out the name. My grandma used to cook this tofu curd desert in sort of like a milk soup. She'd add heaps of these nuts in and I used to literally eat 95% of the ginkgos and blame it on grandpa. Fun times. If you find the nut is dehydrated, you can still use it. It would just be chewier. Oh, if you split the nut in half and pull out the green shoot it will remove the bitter aftertaste.
been wanting to know what these were called for years here in queens new york we used to have couple trees near our block and it would smell horrible. i used to see elderly asian woman fill bags of them up always wondered why
This just solved a very old mystery for me! When I was in first grade we went to see Niagara falls and we stopped at Letchworth park, I think, and I was amazed by all these beautiful fan shaped leaves that were as deep as my waist at the time. Over time my family would say, "like these type of leaves?" And I just finally found them!
A few little factoids: That terrible smell is mostly from butyric acid. Ginkgos are excellent urban trees because they have a high tolerance for air pollution. The ginkgo genus is over 270 million years old. Sexing ginkgos is difficult, because they are sexually mature at about 20 years. Therefore, when landscapers want males, they usually graft a scion from a known male to rootstock of unknown sex. Also, individual branches of ginkgos sometimes change sexes. Males aren't always preferred, because some people are allergic to the pollen.
In Japan, we call that part of Gingko/Icyou (銀杏/イチョウ) Ginnnann (ギンナン) and use it in many dishes like deep-fry, Chawan-mushi (茶碗蒸し savoury egg custard) and so on. As he says here, it is not meant to be eaten in bulk, usually it is used as a decorations, a small part of ingredients.
Thanks to Purdue University, I know what rotting Ginkgo fruit smells like on a hot, humid summer day. I've heard horror stories of people pranking their friends by sticking Ginkgo fruit in random places.
I'm Chinese and we have it in sweet soup. My favourite is with dried soy milk skin / yuba. It has contrasting textures and the slight bitterness of the gingko pairs nicely with the sweet soup. You can freeze them till needed.
Oh I remember eating these as a kid. I’d always get tempted cause they look so good but I always regret eating them cause I think they taste like sweaty feet.
Great, thanks for making this video. When I tried the fruit last fall before knowing it's poisonous, it was sweet and tasty if you can ignore the smell. The raw nut was kinda starchy.
+Jared Rydelek yeah it's too bad I died. I only learned about the nut after I found a bunch of places in Brooklyn that grow them. That time I removed the nut and went after the pit. Felt the shell, thought it would be hard, so I ran it over with a Citibike. It gave way real easy.
We have one of these in front of our dormitory and the berries fall on the stairs and all the students mash them into the concrete, making the whole archway reek for a month.
Ginkgo trees can change sex if there’s no trees of the opposite sex nearby so if plant a row of male ginkgoes along a road some will eventually change to female. It’s a pretty good survival strategy
The smell of the ginkgo fruit comes from butyric acid, which is the smelly substance in vomit and rotten butter. The same substance will also give you rash if you touch it for too long.
Growing up in deep east Tx we had a big ginko tree in our yard and never knew it! My great grandparent built the cabin over 100 years ago I wonder if they planted it, my grandma just called them stink berries and didn't use them for anything!
I wonder If they have any of the therapeutic/herbal medicinal/stimulating properties as the supplements which, I think, are from the leaves... ...and I have the same set of black dishes.
Ginkgo trees are common in Pittsburgh. There are two female trees that have been bombing the cycle track on Schenley Dr. As I was biking past, I called them "Stink bomb trees"! Anyway, they are beautiful trees.
Hi Jared! I'm currently growing some chilean guava and Goji berries indoors in Chicago. If you ever travel here and want to make episodes, I invite you to come try them!
I grew them both in Scotland. The goji bush didn't do well, possibly due to lack of sun and got spindly. I never took it with me when I moved. The chilean guava I thought would never fruit but apparently it does but they are so small they are the size of an apple pip. Maybe one day with more climate change to make it hotter here. No room to take it indoors or i'd consider that. Do yours fruit?
hi I found your channel a few days ago and I haven't stopped watching, being an aspiring botanist I love your series! also might I just say your lips are so beautiful!! i was relieved to find out you're still active on here haha much love from Canada🍁
+Jared Rydelek I've seen these sold in Asian markets next to the Enoki mushrooms for some reason. I bought them once and had no idea what to do with them, ate a few and tossed the rest.
Hi there, i found two recipes on the net. 1. 1 cup of water + 1 tablespoon of sugar, bring it to boil, reduce heat, only simmer it, add some preboiled nuts, let simmer until the nuts are covered with a kind of syrup. Don't eat more than 20 nuts. 2. fry some cubes of meat or tofu in a bit oil, add cubes of Zucchini, add last 2 minutes some nuts and mix with some basil pesto.
Jared Rydelek You inspired me. i have a Ginkgo tree nearby. Hope to get some nuts, to try this year. It is interesting what could be used around me. If you want, i can give you some very old recipes for using Sloe. Got them from old Ladies in neighborhood.
You can always listen to it here on RU-vid. It's from a 1981 horror film "The Black Cat." m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yyiYaBc506I.html
Have you ever tried sprouted coconut? I've never tried it myself, but I hope to someday. My mom is Filipino, and she mentioned one day that it was one of her favorite foods, so I looked up some videos about it. Seems like it would be a perfect "weird fruit" for your channel.
I’m gonna try this because they grow right outside my house. I think you can also make a tea from them because there’s this guy that does it where I live.
but you use the leaves for tea, i think? i really like the nuts when salted, and their color is so pretty and vibrant.. i'd be interested to know how you liked them!
The dried leaves are used for tea. It helps your brain have better circulation. The seeds are eaten as a kind of tonic. Ginkgo biloba leaves and sarcotesta also contain ginkgolic acids,[65] which are highly allergenic, long-chain alkylphenols such as bilobol or adipostatin A[66] (bilobol is a substance related to anacardic acid from cashew nut shells and urushiols present in poison ivy and other Toxicodendron spp.)[42] Individuals with a history of strong allergic reactions to poison ivy, mangoes, cashews and other alkylphenol-producing plants are more likely to experience allergic reaction when consuming non-standardized ginkgo-containing preparations, combinations, or extracts thereof. The level of these allergens in standardized pharmaceutical preparations from Ginkgo biloba was restricted to 5 ppm by the Commission E of the former Federal German Health Authority. Overconsumption of seeds from Gingko biloba can deplete vitamin B6.
Even though they are males when planted, they switch gender when there’s a large population of the opposite sex so many of the trees have switched over to female since being planted to equal everything out. My uncle told me this and he was a gardener for some places in the city.
Kinda fascinating that other 'Ginkgo' species that are now extinct and related to the biloba were eaten by dinosaurs millions of years ago. The foul smell might have been attractive to them and is an evolutionary advantage.
My college had trees that would drop fruit on the sidewalk. The fruit would gunk up the side walk and rot in the sun. There was no avoiding them and people would get it on their shoes and track it inside. There was no escape from the smell.
There's a street near a friend's house that has ginkgos along the street for about half a mile. They're spectacular when they turn gold in the fall! But the fruit stinks and gets spread all over by tires.
Used to call them stink berries. They used to line our high school street. Would have huge mushed puddles that smelled like rotten fruit dumpster fires.
I remember picking these fruits and rolling them into the street trying to get cars to run them over. We never tried eating them, but it was fun to roll them around
When I was in NYC a few years ago, I found Ginko fruit in Central park... Only thing is I ate the flesh from a dozen or so and not the seeds. Thought it tasted like a rotten apricot.
Why is there a video about erectile dysfunction in my recommendations when I never watched anything involving penises on RU-vid?! ON A FRUIT TASTING VIDEO?!
+metademetra Yeah sometimes I think the suggested ads are trying to make fun of me. Like "Oh you're watching THAT video, you must not be getting laid. Here's an ad for Viagra and an online dating site."
Love how the chinese process these, boiled til soft and sweetened. They call them "White nuts" or rather literally translated to "White Fruit"...and the boiled sweetened nuts are delicious. An acquired taste but delicious!!!
There's a gingko fruit tree near where i live and it drops hundreds of that stuff all over the road. It fills up the whole street with the smell of dog shit.
Ginkgos are pretty common landscaping trees here in Maine, but they only plant males. I have yet to come across a female unfortunately, I would love to propagate some from seed.
The trees are capable of changing their sex, apparently. So what was originally a male tree, can turn into a female tree, and start producing fruit. I've noticed that new branches can sprout anywhere from the tree trunk. You'll often see them come up from around the base. I'm sure those could be cut off and propagated as cuttings. They're extremely hardy trees so I'm guessing that cuttings would do well.
Just an FYI, if you’re picking nuts or apples or basically anything off the ground, clean them well! Because there’s a good possibility that deer are pooping where you’re picking and you don’t want salmonella, E. coli or anything else.
Maybe invest in a small countertop oven. Heating up a large oven for a dozen seeds seems like a waste. And you did mention your gas bill in a previous video.
haha use a paint mixer and a bucket ful of water. then mix it. the nuts sink to the ground and the fruitflesh will swimm on top. whit this method i would do at least 1kg
By my experience you’re safe to eat more than 10, but you should gauge yourself. The most I’ve eaten was 28 in a day, but it may vary especially in young children. I didn’t get any side effects either. I eat it by actually cracking the Shells first and pan frying the bare nuts with oil and salt
I have been researching and growing ginkgo for over 30 years. There is a LOT of misinformation in these replies. May I recommend The Ginkgo Pages by Cor Kwant, an online blog, that is not only informative but factually correct. Regarding your video, I believe the reason the “nut” was so spongy is because you cooked it when it was too fresh. I harvest mine, dry them completely, then cook them. The consistency and flavour is then much more nut-like and the color is more like jade.
Watching you handle that ginkgo fruit made me cringe - I found one years ago and decided to take it home and it stunk of rotting poo and so did my hands 😅
Ahh Ginkgo Biloba, it grows everywhere in the southeast US, though not indigenous, it does quite well. It's sadly the last of its kind in the entire division of Ginkgophyta and it's an endangered species. Hopefully things turn around for the little guys, they've lived this long through the deaths of their cousins. They are a great nootropic and are really cool to see. I'd like to grow my own somehow out here in the desert, hopefully they'll be okay.
Here's an abstract from a research article for you "Ginkgo biloba is known as ‘living fossils’ as it is the only surviving member of ancient trees. Ginkgo fossils are being known from rocks as old as two hundred million years. This plant is native to China and scattered in broad leaved mixed-mesophytic forest up to 1,100 m and it is located on the border of the Yangtze River valley and on the hill country. The wild population is confined to the Zhejiang province, China. Some other parts also have wild population but those are not up to sufficient numbers. Flavonoids and terpenoids-lactones such as Ginkgolides and bilobalide are the active components and these are unique to the Ginkgo. Plants are used for bladder inflammation and pulmonary disorders, heart abnormalities, skin infections and neurodegenerative disorders. A Ginkgo product by the name of Tebonin is a leading herbal medicine in market. So the consumption of this plant worldwide is very high due to which plant is facing great threats towards its extinction. Ginkgo biloba is listed as endangered plant in the IUCN red list of threatened species. There is hardly any wild population of Ginkgo exists, majority of the trees are existing in the cultivated form and million of the dollar industry has cashed in based on the medicinal properties of the leaves. Resultantly it is possible that this living fossil will survive the short of time. A recommendation for its preservation is that there should be some steps to increase the size of wild populations." Meaning that it's cultivated successfully, however in its natural range in the wild it's sadly becoming pretty sparse.
Technically they are not fruit they are fleshy seed coats. The ginko is a gymnosperm not a flowering plant, it's more closely related to cycads than to flowering trees.
