staple 復習
栗の歴史についての記事について取り上げたいと思います。
Kuri’: The nutty staple of ancient Japan
Fresh chestnuts are one of the few things in Japan that are truly seasonal and not available year-round like so many other food products these days. Chestnuts (kuri in Japanese) have been consumed here since prehistoric times. Charred chestnuts that are more than 9,000 years old have been found in and around the archaeological sites of Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.) settlements.
At the 5,500-year-old Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori Prefecture, evidence of large-scale cultivation of chestnuts has also been discovered — as well as a huge chestnut tree in the center of the settlement that was probably used for religious rituals — indicating their importance as a food source in the days before rice cultivation became widespread. The chestnut wood was valued as building material as well as firewood. Chestnuts are still used in Shinto rituals in some parts of the country, and they’re an important osechi (New Year’s holiday cuisine) dish: a concoction of mashed sweet potatoes with kuri no kanro-ni, chestnuts cooked in sugar syrup. Chestnuts cooked with a crushed gardenia seed are supposed to bring good financial fortune and help make you a winner in life.
一部抜粋
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2016/10/14/food/kuri-nutty-staple-ancient-japan/#.WArz5sdcW2f
今回取り上げる表現は見出しの"staple"という表現です。はじめは「ホッチキス」という意味を思い浮かべましたがここでは別の意味で用いられています。
そこで『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版）を調べてみると他に「主要なもの、主要産物」という意味が載っていました。また、Oxford Wordpower Dictionary には"a principal raw material or product grown or manufactured in a locality"と定義されていることもわかりました。
したがってここでは「木の実の主要産物」と訳せると思いました。(Mt.Fuji)
p.s.過去にも同じ単語が取り上げられています（まさかnuttyの別の意味はかけられていないと思います）。
