Why do some people call filberts hazelnuts? Around here, where lots of filberts grow, nobody called them hazlenuts until the yuppies showed up and started selling "hazelnut frappacinos," - whatever the hell THAT is - but nowadays you almost never hear anyone saying filberts. Why?

Thamks Asa, another new transatlantic word for me. I'd seen the word filbert before but I never realised that it's just a hazelnut which is what they are invariably called in my part of the world.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
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I lived in Filbert Drive for ten years. We all knew that filberts were hazelnuts.

I remember when I first made a cake using ground "hazelnuts". I had a terrible time finding them in my grocery store, and the grocer didn't know either, because they were only labelled as "filberts"

I have always called them hazelnuts and only a few years ago realized that they were also called filberts. It must be a geographical thing, like how some people call a certain drink a slurpee or a slushie...

As a way of:
1. Avoiding the work of repeating previously typed text,
2. Trying to master my (feeble) website linking skills,
3. Remind y'all about the "Shufitz and Kalleh" anagram,
4. And, by doing so, further point out that I had had those two pegged as a couple before they outed themselves as a married couple on this board,
Allow me to refer you to:Filbert Brittle - Ace Detective

(The applicable text is at the very end of that post. I just checked it and am mildly amazed that it worked. Thanks again to B.H. for the instructions on how to work this little miracle, posted elsewhere.)

Oh that was a fun thread, wasn't it? And, I do miss museamuse. Now, where has she been lately?

As for your purported knowledge about Shufitz and my being married, CJ, might I remind you about this January 13th post? Okay, which is it? You knew or you wouldn't have guessed it?

You "came out" as a married couple on this board in January of this year. The preceding October was when I linked you two together although, admitedly, it was only for the purpose of anagramization. No anagrams were forthcoming from either "Shufitz" or "Kalleh" so I just lumped the two of you together.

At that time, I hadn't known you were already lumped.

I forgot that hazelnuts were also called filberts! Never knew them by that name, and they are my absolute favorite nut. (After a few people I know, of course! )

Filberts and hazelnuts may not be precisely the same thing. Though this site begins with "Hazelnuts and filberts are the same nut," it continues, "The filbert is a cousin of the hazelnut."

The distinction: filberts, hazelnuts and cobnuts all belong to the family Corylus.

Technically, the hazelnut is either of the american varietys, C. americana and C. cornuta. It is raised in Oregon and Washington (nowhere else) on a bush the produces the nuts in late October.
The name filbert is applied to two varieties to native toEurope, Corylus avellana pontica and C. maxima. It is much smaller than the Oregonean hazelnut. The cobnut is another native European variety C. avellana grandis.

The filbert is found in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. It grows on a bush that blooms in February (not October) on St. Filbert's day, and the name "filbert" was a local term for the plant, later extended to the nut.

Side note: in checking to get this information I came across many recipes that look scrumptious.

Hazelnuts belong to the genus Corylus in the Betulaceae (Birch Family). Some authorities now place it in its own family, Corylaceae. I've always heard them called hazelnuts, though I knew they were the same as filberts. I had thought hazelnut was an American term and filbert a British one. Guess I was wrong.

Arthur Lee Jacobson, in North American Landscape Trees (Ten Speed Press, 1996), says, “Both HAZEL and FILBERT are old English names, and are used largely interchangeably, but HAZEL is more likely to be used in reference to wild specimens, and FILBERT to cultivated ones.
Frank Lamb said 'a FILBERT is a HAZEL with a college education'".

There are about fifteen species of hazel in the world, though only two are native to the United States, beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta - two varieties) and American hazel (C. americana). GardenWeb's HortiPlex Plant Database lists eleven species and twelve varieties, cultivars and hybrids. Most species of hazel are shrubs to small trees, but one, Turkish hazel (C. colurna) is definitely a tree, fifty to sixty feet tall. Jacobson says the record is one hundred feet tall (Trees of Seattle, Susquatch Books, 1989).

Our hazel (west coast, USA) is Corylus cornuta var. californica.

Tinman

quote:

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Originally posted by tinman:
I had thought hazelnut was an American term and filbert a British one.

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I'd never heard of filberts until I read this thread, but it is in my (British English) dictionary. Names for foodstuffs and plants are very regional though, so it may be well-known elsewhere in the UK. Or else it's just me, of course! (Apparently we call them cobnuts as well.)