missred, now I have this image in my mind of you donning your protective goggles beside a crank corn sheller and a mound of black walnuts. Since I now have the face to go with it, I am going to be merry all week!
Ooo! Ohio native checking in…
Here’s what my grandparents did with theirs.
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Nuts start dropping from tree. Grampa leaves them in the driveway. As he drives in and out of the driveway, the car removes the husks from the nuts. I’m not kidding. He used a Geo Metro to de-husk his walnuts. (Stop that giggling!)
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When all nuts are de-husked, Grampa then spread a sheet out over the couch, the floor and anything within ten feet of the television. While watching TV (for some reason, this step is important), he took a brick and a hammer and carefully balanced the brick on his knee. Placed nut on brick and tapped with a hammer. The resulting shards of black walnut shell went flying all over the living room, but were caught (mostly) by the sheet. The remaining errant shards were picked up by my grandmother’s nightly trip around the living room with the vacuum cleaner.
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When about two cups of nuts were de-shelled, Gramma made a pie. Follow pecan pie recipe, only use black walnuts. This was a family favorite every holiday until Gramma died, and now nobody in the family is willing to drive over the nuts for a couple of months.
For my money, it’s cheaper and simpler to go buy the darn things, but I live 1,200 miles away from the source.
Enjoy.
Fnnurh Fnnurh,ooh missus!
Slight hijack, but what is the difference between hickory trees and black walnuts? AFAICT, they are identical, so is it just a regional dialect ‘thang’, or was I horribly misinformed as a child?
As far as shelling the things, we just waited until the husks were dry and they just fell off the nut. You know it’s ripe that way, too. We were also convinced that it took more energy to get the meat out of it than you could get back from eating it.
They are two completely different trees.
Hickory Hickory - Wikipedia
Black walnut Juglans nigra - Wikipedia
Zoe, this was a lesson from the school of hard knocks. Two months in one of those fashionable black eyepatches at the age of eight. :smack:
Sal, something else that black walnuts are good in are salads. If you still have some around come spring, get some fresh spring greens, some kind of crumbly, sharp cheese and raspberry-walnut vinegriette dressing and sprinkle liberally with the black walnuts. Yummmmm!
At the immature stage, the shell isn’t hard at all - it’s just another layer of green tissue and has a texture approximately that of a raw carrot - the pickling process softens it further though. The whole pickled nuts are sliced or chopped and served with cheeses or cold meats, or can be incorporated into recipes such as sauces and gravy as an ingredient - almost like a spice.
You were instructed wrongly as an adolescent. Very wrongly in fact.
I have both black walnuts and butternuts on my farm. I also use a corn sheller to remove the husks from the walnuts, the butternuts do not need to be husked because the husk does not have as intense of a flavor (or so my grandmother has informed me),
My method for shelling walnuts is thus:
I took a 6" x 6" x 12" block of hardwood and drilled out a cavity approximately the same size and shape as half of a black walnut. I put the nut in the cavity and hit it with a hammer, wearing safety glasses.
Black walnuts always make me think of my grandpa. I remember him sitting on the front porch out at the farm shelling them, and how black his fingers would get.
We have a black walnut tree in our yard now, too. Shortly after we moved in, one of our neighbors came over and asked if he could have the walnuts. I told him he was welcome to come over and help himself any time he wanted. Since then, he’s not only cleaned up our yard for us every year by picking up the black walnuts, his wife makes some delicious black walnut fudge and brings it over every Christmas. Jackpot!
After following a few links and a bit of Googling, I see where my confusion arises. We had Black Walnuts and Black Hickories. They are somewhat similar and could be easily conflated by a youngster. Thanks for the help Harmonious Discord and Baker.