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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Tuesday, March 30
Sticking with a theme, what is growing in this field? I've considered planting my own—supposedly you can start a plant from the uneaten portion of one of these that you buy at the store, and if you keep it well sheltered and watered for three years, you will get a 100% return on your investment. On second thought, that doesn't sound like such an amazing deal.

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

Yesterday I walked past L'Acajou Café in Oakland, which inspired this puzzle. Acajou is French for the tropical tree in the picture. What is the main food crop yielded by this tree?

Solution The red fruit may be the first thing that catches your eye, but the main crop is the suspiciously cashew-shaped seed hanging from it—oh, and wouldn't you know it, acajou sounds a lot like cashew. (The English and French words are both derived from a word in the Tupi language of Brazil.)

Maddy tells me cashew fruit juice is yummy. I'll have to look out for it! The only time I've seen the fruit is in the freezer case of a Latin American grocery store in Oakland, but I decided not to buy it as a frozen product is usually not the best representation of a fruit.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Trent, Inca, Connor, Jacob C., Maddy, Peter M., and Kate. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!

About This Site

Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."

Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.

Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.