jQuery get .text() but not the text in span

Nice solution Herman, though it can be reduced to something like this:

JS

$('li a').contents().filter(function() {
    return this.nodeType == 3;
}).text();

HTML

<li><a href="#">Apple<span>hi</span> Juice</a></li>

Will return Apple Juice

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/49sHa/1/

Yes, you can select only the text contents of the element, like this:

 var text = '';
 $('a').contents().each(function(){
    if(this.nodeType === 3){
     text += this.wholeText;
    }
 });
 $("#largemenutop").html(text);