[2013 10 12]
[[ don't do this unless you really know it's safe for you ]]

Living fossil tree, coming from the deepest prehistory and from asia, splendid yellow foliage in autumn, strange leaves, beautiful and delicious seeds”, awfully stinking juice from ripe fruits, medicinal properties (?), improbable orthography (also)… It’s easy to be fascinated by Ginkgo Biloba.

Let’s examine and taste some Ginkgo “seed”, although it’s early in autumn.

Materials
————
- ginkgo fruits harvested in a nearby street, and let to ripen outside for a few days
- stone saw : lustrated sandstone (~quartzite)
- nutcracker : old dry ginkgo branch harvested in a nearby street (fallen from a bunch of shoots that are growing back from the stump of a ginkgo that had been cut down)
- not primitive : oil (olive), metal pot, paper and electric hotplate

[ I don't show a parallel experiment involving the juice (so disgusting ; don't remember having seen insects eating the "fruits"). I'm wondering (primitive ignorant's intuition) whether it would repel moulds and protect organisms against decay and all kind of insects. I've mixed the juice with some tree gum (cherry tree or almond tree gum). This gum is easily colonized by moulds, at least when water has been added and when it is still more or less liquid. We'll see later if the mixture (gum + ginkgo fruit juice) has interesting properties The answer may be obvious for those who know butyric acid properties ? (something more to verify). ]

[ update 2014 08 15 - someone says that eating raw ginkgo nuts can be dangerous ... searched a bit and found nothing clear ... except that there is a lot of internet noise about poisoning risks - ]

Examples of what we can find (not very convincing for me, because vague, extreme, or in inaccessible languages) about ginkgo nuts (coocked) :

“Ginkgo nut intoxication in a 2-year-old male” ;

“A 2-year-old girl presented with vomiting and diarrhea 7 hours after eating a large quantity of ginkgo seeds.” ;

“A previously healthy 41-year-old woman presented with nausea, vomiting, vertigo, and tremors of both upper limbs that occurred 4 hours after she consumed 60 ginkgo seeds. ” ;

“When eaten in large quantities or over a long period, especially by children [...] can cause poisoning by 4′-O-methylpyridoxine (MPN). MPN is heat stable and not destroyed by cooking” [[wikipedia]] ;

“Data Base on Food Poisoning by Ginkgo Seeds” : in japanese or chinese languages… but we can guess that the matter is not very concerning : 25 (different ?) cases described in 20 medical articles between 1931 and 2002 – and 2 articles describing experimentation on animals (1952 and 1953)

or … a grandma rule of the thumb … “A general rule is for children to eat no more than their age, and no one should eat more than a dozen at a time, and not frequently”

Links :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16996402

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11826216

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjaam/21/12/21_12_956/_article

https://www.hoku-iryo-u.ac.jp/~wadakg/ginkgotox.html

https://www.momschinesekitchen.com/ginkgo-nuts/

[tags in descritpion : maidenhair tree gymnosperm Ginkgoaceae urban harvest urban foraging jade jewel árbol de los cuarenta escudos arbre aux quarante écus arbre aux mille écus nutcracker seed ]