You know autumn has well and truly arrived when baskets of cobnuts appear in the shops and friends who have trees in their garden are offering you their excess.

My friend Jacquie Pearce-Gervis approached me with a large bag of cobnuts from her garden last week. It seems that her tree has yielded a great harvest, far too many nuts for her to get through alone, so she is sharing them with her friends. I meet up with Jacquie at the Radio Cherwell studios on Monday. She is the volunteer presenter who suggested that my Border collie Pythius and I take on a regular programme — Paws for Patients — which covers the walks the dog and I enjoy each week. Our aim in making these programmes, under the guidance of the station’s talented director Neil Stockton, is to encourage recovering patients to take a walk and get some fresh air when they leave hospital.

I couldn’t have been given a nicer gift, as cobnuts, which are essentially a variety of hazelnuts, make a delicious snack eaten just as they are (shelled, of course!) and add a certain autumn magic to various recipes, too, especially salads and soups.

They are marketed fresh and not dried first, like most other nuts such as walnuts and almonds, which means they can only be found for sale in season — which is now. That said, if they are stored carefully in a dry cool place in a perforated container or basket to prevent them from sweating, and turned every couple of weeks, they will easily last until it is time to pick next year’s crop. Although a few supermarkets stock them, you will probably find a more plentiful supply on sale at your local farmers’ market.

Their nutritional value is good. Cobnut kernels contain 12 to 17 per cent of protein by dry weight, and about ten per cent of fibre. They are also rich in vitamin E and calcium, containing about 21 mg and 141 mg per 100g dry weight kernels respectively. They also provide about 0.4mg and 0.55mg of vitamins B1 and B6 per 100g dry weight.

Cobnuts have grown wild in this country since time immemorial. They have been cultivated since the 16th century and proved so popular with the Victorians that many new varieties were bred during 19th century. In 1913, plantations of cobnuts extended to more than 7,000 acres, most being found in Kent, where they flourished.

Today there are only about 200 to 250 of the old orchards surviving but new ones are being planted.

The Kentish Cob tree gives a reliable crop with an excellent flavour. Other varieties include Gunslebert, Merveille de Bollwiiller, Butler, Ennis and Colsford. Unlike apple varieties, which differ greatly one from another, the difference between these varieties is not so obvious.

As far as I am concerned a cobnut is a cobnut — but then I am no expert. I just like the taste of this versatile little nut, which I often discover, growing wild in the hedgerows.

So what am I going to do with this lovely large bagful that Jacquie has provided?

For a start, I can roast them. This is easy: having removed their shells I put them on a flat baking tray and place them in a moderate oven (300F/150C or gas mark 2) for about an hour, turning them at least once.

I usually leave them there for about an hour or until they are hard and brown but not burnt and then eat them warm, or use them to decorate cakes. For a real treat, I coat three or four at a time in melted chocolate, placing each cluster on greased paper to set.

These make a delicious end-of-meal treat. They make good gifts too.

Buttered cobnuts are just as easy and are cooked on the top of the stove.

Just place a knob of butter the size of a walnut into a small frying pan over a moderate heat and toss in the shelled nuts. Then stir now and again until they are brown and glistening. These are the nuts I toss into salads (see the recipe on the left).

They can also be chopped raw and added to a stuffing mixture or zapped through a liquidiser and added to a soup for extra flavour and texture.

If chopped and cooked in a wok with butter for about a minute, they make an excellent base for a stir fry. Just add the rest of the ingredients after a minute and stir as usual.

One word of warning: nut allergy is becoming an increasingly recognised problem, particularly in children. It is important, therefore, that you don’t add chopped nuts to foods without checking that those eating these dishes are not allergic to them.

The effects of nut allergy can be startling, being anything from vomiting, to swelling of the throat or unconsciousness. Most people suffering from this allergy will inform you, but it really is worth checking.