Do walnuts in a chocolate chip cookie ruin or complete it?
The marriage of chocolate and nuts would cause some people to yell, “I object!” I recall debating the union at a very early age with my grandmother. Walnuts were a staple item in all of her homemade desserts. I thought they tasted terribly bitter. If I had a nickel for every time she said, “Eat around them…”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, professor of surgery at Columbia University and a regular on the Oprah Winfrey Show, explains that kids have more taste buds which are highly sensitized. A child’s 10,000 taste buds favor bland and sweet foods, finding other foods to be bitter. This is one of the body’s evolutionary safety mechanisms for avoiding poisons found in nature. I wish I had known this as a child. My grandmother might have made nut-free cookies had I been able to argue poison avoidance.
My 3,000 adult taste buds now seek chocolate with hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts, and other fruit and coconut combos. I still don’t enjoy a walnut and on principle, won’t eat around one.
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