Walnut
When an Englishman thinks of a nut, it is the filbert or the cobnut which comes most readily into his fancy: walnut is to him what its name signifies-a foreign nut. To the southern races of Europe it is the nut of nuts. All the classical allusions which connect nuts and Waterzootje marriage have reference to the walnut. The nut was also - supposed to be precious for its uses. Its oil was good for bald heads, for the painter's palette, for lamps, and for worms. I conclude that our ancestors must have been much troubled with worms for the number of plants. which they cultivated with a view to repelling the inroads of worms was extraordinary. The walnut not only cured worms; it cured hydrophobia; and was such an antidote to poison that it was the chief ingredient of the remedy on which Mithridates relied. Then the timber of the tree was extremely valuable. This we can see still in household furniture; but the wood was especially set apart for gunstocks. The tree also has some peculiar influence for good or for bad on the vegetation around it. A walnut tree will kill the strawberry beds in its neighbourhood. On the other hand, it is said to be of some great benefit to field crops. Long ago, around Frankfort, a young farmer was never allowed to marry till he could prove that he had planted a certain number of walnut trees. It may be added that between the 45th and 48th degree of latitude in France walnuts are more abundant than anywhere else in Europe. It is fit that in the chief wine country of the world the walnuts should increase and multiply. The French are, however, backward in one respect: they do not so much as the English appreciate the cooked, that is the pickled, walnut-the most simple of condiments and one of the most distinguished.
WATERZOOTJE-a term of Dutch origin for the most simple way of dressing fish. It is used either for the smaller fish, as slips and Thames flounders; or for the larger fish, as salmon cut into small pieces. The fish must have a delicate flavour of their own to come well out of this process, which consists of boiling them in some small stock or court bouillon, and of serving them up in this liquor, to which a few sprigs and sometimes roots of Welsh Rabbit parsley may be added. Boiled fish are usually eaten with a sauce of some character. In this case the fish are eaten with a dessert-spoon and a fork in their own liquor. The favourite fish eaten at Greenwich in this way are Thames flounders. Francatelli will have it that the best of all fish for waterzootje is the char.
The zootje is always eaten with thin slices of brown bread and butter.