Daily Nuts
I can’t get enough of those nuts. Hazelnuts, oats, raisins. Daily stoic? Sure, but I’ll take some more of that Daily Nuts.
Someday in January my friend Tony and I decided to celebrate New Year with some treats. That of course brought us to Sam’s store, the overstocked, way too vast agora where we both found refuge. With his coupons, we began scheming for a good deal. The dazzling lineup of never-ending snacks, rolls, chips, and fresh juice with pulp and no pulp belittled me. How did people come up with all these ideas for food? I was fed by the traps laid before me by capitalism and consumerism until I found a red box labeled Daily Nuts.
In the advertisement, each package of Daily Nuts is said to contain 12 types of nuts and 5 species of fruits. They even put an entire plum inside the hand-size package. With no understatement, Daily Nut is the ultimate packet of vitamins, minerals, protein, health, and happiness altogether. To me, they are the 6th major food group, ranking just below Carbohydrates and Dairy, both my go-to foods when seasonally depressed. Thankfully, similar to the religious syncretism of Roman Catholic, Greek Philosophy, and Orient Myths during the Hellenistic period, I blended that Mediterranean in my cereal bowl: I decorated my canvas with some of that muesli, some daily nuts, a few blueberries, and raspberries, and finishing off with cascade of almond milk.
Nuts come in all languages. Some of my favorites are German. From the German label, you can tell these are not the nuts to mess with. The double Ts and double Rs. They spell Hazelnuts as Haselnuss. I’m still trying to figure out a whole sociological or anthropological explanation for why they like the “S” and “Sch” sounds. There is one thing I love about their packaging: sharp corners, no empty space. Industrious and thrifty culture at display. That of course was before my summer in San Francisco studying philosophy where I coincided with a rather odd fellow. He is German, but contrary to what I considered as German, he would lean back on his chair until it formed a perfect horizontal line, he would also start bouncing until he got his head into the roof (literally, into the ceiling of the Ng dorm corridor). We talked about Plato’s magic number, Stephen Curry, and the epic battle between a group of paper swords and shield-armed five-year-olds just outside our classroom. Germans don’t always have cuts and corners.
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But my absolute favorite brand of nuts is Ferrero. They are an Italian brand, no wonder they sound like Ferrari. They also do taste like it. I love the rich, thick chocolate they add. Each bite feels more luxurious and pretentious(in a good way) than German Haselnusses.
Once protein bars threatened to compete with daily nuts. It was March, it was turmoil in my head. Protein bars are more crunchy, have better covers, and are labeled with cartoon drawings(exclusively on Granola House) tempts me to change. For a month I abandoned Daily Nuts and turned my appetite to Oat Bars-Almond Sesame. Since then I no longer feel guilty casting aside daily nuts. I love trying new snacks.
As my palate goes around the world, it brings me back to the traditional, original nuts found in the countryside of China and on the balcony of my family’s flat. China had special names for nuts. Pistachios, for example, were called the “Happy Fruit”; I sure am happy after nailing an entire box of Happy Fruit on New Year’s Eve.
In the summer of 2023, my older brother pulled me on a quest to conquer the highest mountains in China. On our first destination “Huangshan” we came across a type of log, pointy nut that grew on the overhanging trees loosely rooted along the cliff. As the wind began pouring, following an unprecedented rainstorm, I held onto his backpack, he hugged tightly onto one of those trees, and the trees held onto the roots.. We both scream slurs and confess our guilt. It turns out he was the one who got rid of my safety pillow when I was 5. I never felt more bonded to my brother, physically and spiritually. The nuts were stronger than I thought. Holding onto tenuous branches, the pointy nuts withstand gusty winds and pouring rain without complaints, daily. After the storm peace, we headed down and got coffee from the halfway checkpoint: Hazelnut coffee with almond milk, please.
Chatting with a subsistent farmer from the plateaus of Mongolia whom I invited to share about self-sufficiency with us city dwellers, I learned that nuts are not always your friend. Semen Armeniacae Amarum, or Bitter almonds, as the locals called them, are smaller, thicker-fleshed, with dark, saucy red skin. Bitter almonds as a whole are toxic, emitting hydrogen cyanide that causes vomit and nausea. I stayed away from it for the entire session, but when he told me that it is considered the cheapest medication for many of the respiratory problems they had living on Highland, I took a bite hoping it would help with the tonsil infections I had. It didn’t work, but I’m glad tried.
Daily nuts became daily not because I developed an addiction to their taste and crunchiness nor was I chewing on them to solidify my jawline; they became essential because they are part of my life I took for granted. In my special garden atop my family’s flat where I held the lectures for subsistent farmers, I never thought about growing nuts-it takes at least 3–4 years for them to produce a maximum handful of nuts; I can finish a bowl of almonds and Happy Fruit within the ten minutes of Marcus Aurelius: the man who solve the universe(my second favorite video on Marcus Aurelius). Every time this crosses my mind I become emotionally grateful for everything that enters my life. Nuts also taught me so much about the world, nature, and myself. They give me lessons in the German language, Italian culture and cuisine, the trade war(against protein bars), my heritage and family, and a whole lot more. By opening my day with the rich nutrients protected by the hard crust, I found the entrance to unlimited positivity and curiosity to push me forward; if that’s not enough, I also found the perfect combination of milk, cereal, fruits, and nuts, to make my brother, my family, and myself a perfect blend of sweetness and serene.
