Bat Nuts Revisited

Back on January 4th, I posted a short show-and-tell piece about Bat Nuts. At that point I hadn't actually ever tasted them... but now I have!

On January 22nd, I came across a steaming basket of these "wicked-little-water-caltrops" for sale on the street behind Long Shan Temple (龍山寺) in Taipei.

They tasted pretty good to me... very much like their "less-awesome-looking-water-chestnut-cousins" and having a similar crisp, crunchy texture.

Bat Nuts

My pal Seth (a well-respected Northwest acupuncturist) gave me a couple of "Bat Nuts" a few years ago. "Bat Nuts," aka "Devil Pods," are the seed pods of Trapa bicornis, an aquatic Asian plant. The Chinese call them lingjiao (菱角) and consider them a lucky food because they resemble bats. Bats are lucky because the word for bat, fu (蝠) sounds just like the word for fourtune, fu (福).

Despite their demonic appearance, many people enjoy roasting or boiling bat nuts and eating them like chestnuts... but I thought these two were just too cool to eat so I'm keeping them around for show and tell.