black walnuts

[zimmerstutzen]

I have close to 200 black walnut trees scattered across the farm. I can get bushels of them just by shoveling where they gather when they roll down the hill. They add a great strong walnut flavor to cakes and cookies, even pies. But they are a $#&@@ to crack and take out the meats. Tried freezing them and squeezing in a bench vise, but still slow and tedious. Any of you have a magic method?

 

[coloradoclyde]

Hull them by jacking up the truck so that the back tires are just off the ground...roll then into the tire as it spins.....peels them right off...Not O.S.H.A. approved though... :haha:

As for cracking....Had a 4"x8" square piece of solid steel with an walnut shaped depression in one end....Put the walnut in the depression and whack it with a big hammer. dump it out on a tray and sort out the nuts.

English walnuts are easy....Open with a dodge minivan key. There is a tiny slot area at the base of the walnut where you can easily force the key into it....turn and the nut opens perfectly.

 

[George]

My secret is division of labor, I crack them and my wife picks them out. :wink:

BTW, vacuum packed and frozen the meats keep forever.

Spence

 

[Black Hand]

BTW, vacuum packed and frozen the meats keep forever.

Important point Spence makes - nuts absorb flavors from the freezer readily and the nut oils will oxidize (become rancid) if exposed to air for an extended period. Vacuum-sealing helps eliminate/minimize these issues.

 

[Sean Gadhar]

About 20 years ago I knew a guy that went around and got all the black walnuts from people trees, he had a press, the arm was about 18-20 inches :hmm: seems like it worked about like a tiny wood splitter. I think he got a welder to knock it up for him for a few pounds of shelled nuts and a case of beer. Seemed vary over kill to me.....but I never had to crack a car trunk of black walnuts...and he did.

This is NOT the one but it is another Idea for a press http://notastelikehome.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Mr.Hickory.jpg

Like I said his worked more like a wood splitter pushing a wedge into a block :hmm: or a block into a wedge.

 

[sidelock]

My Father in law had lots of walnut trees on his farm is SW VA and I would pick up a tow sack full about every 2 years, take them home, store in my garage and crack them with a hammer as needed by my wife. Wasn't so bad that way. Many people living in that area still sit around the wood stove on winter nights and crack walnuts to sell. (a more useful activity than some I can think of on cold winter nights ----on the other hand????)

 

[BillinOregon]

Sean, that is a heck of a black walnut press.
I used my blacksmith's leg vise to crack them in small quantities.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I like the simplicity of the second picture...Looks like it belongs in the 18th century.
http://web.ncf.ca/bf250/nutcracker.html

 

[Nativearizonan]

Another way to utilize the nuts, rather than pick out the meat, is something I read once and can't remember where, about how the Cherokee utilized hickory nuts. They would just smash them and put him in a kettle of water over a fire, after heating them for a while, they would strain off the smashed shells and meat, and then skim off the oil, which they used to cook with.

I have never tried this, and don't know what temperature and for how long they were cooked. I would imagine the nuts would have been thoroughly smashed with either rocks or a hardwood mortal and pestle to be able to extract as much oil as possible.

As far as just cracking the nuts, I have heard of people driving over them. The native method would have been using one flat rock with an indention (metate) and a smaller hand sized rock to strike them with. Once you get going with the right amount of energy in the swing, it goes pretty quick. Picking the meats is what takes the most time. You can use various methods to concentrate the meat from the shells, but if you don't get all the shell pieces out, you are going to have some unhappy chewers.

 

[George]

Another way to utilize the nuts, rather than pick out the meat, is something I read once and can't remember where, about how the Cherokee utilized hickory nuts.

A New Voyage to Carolina; Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of That Country: Together with the Present State Thereof. And A Journal of a Thousand Miles, Travel'd Thro' Several Nations of Indians. Giving a Particular Account of Their Customs, Manners, &c., 1709, by Lawson, John, Gent. Surveyor-General of North Carolina
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/lawson/lawson.html

"Hiccory Nuts have very hard Shells, but excellent sweet Kernels, with which, in a plentiful Year, the old Hogs, that can crack them, fatten themselves, and make excellent Pork. These Nuts are gotten, in great Quantities, by the Savages, and laid up for Stores, of which they make several Dishes and Banquets. One of these I cannot forbear mentioning; it is this: They take these Nuts, and break them very small betwixt two Stones, till the Shells and Kernels are indifferent small; And this Powder you are presented withal in their Cabins, in little wooden Dishes; the Kernel dissolves in your Mouth, and the Shell is spit out. This tastes as well as any Almond. Another Dish is the Soup which they make of these Nuts, beaten, and put into Venison-Broth, which dissolves the Nut, and thickens, whilst the Shell precipitates, and remains at the bottom. This Broth tastes very rich."

And in Virginia, as described in _Food in Seventeenth-Century Tidewater Virginia_ by Maryellen Spencer:

"While acorns, chestnuts, and chinquapins went often into bread or stews, hickory nuts made an unusual soup or milk. As Colonel Norwood [Norwood, "A Voyage to Virginia" (1650)] lyrically describes,

'It was a sort of spoon-meat, in colour and taste not unlike
to almond-milk temper'd and mix'd with boiled rice. The
ground still was Indian corn boiled to a pap, which they
call Homini, but the ingredient which performed the milky
part, was nothing but dry pokickery nuts, beaten shells
and all to powder, and they are like our walnuts, but
thicker shell'd, and the kernel sweeter; but being beaten
in a mortar, and put into a tray, hollow'd in the middle to
make place for fair water, no sooner is the water poured
into the powder, but it rises again white and creamish;
and after a little ferment it does partake so much of the
delicate taste of the kernel of that nut, that it becomes a
rarity to a miracle.'
http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitst...655.V856_1982.S772.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Spence

 

[Nativearizonan]

@ Spence, Thanks for that. I did not know almond milk was something known about in that time frame. I thought it was a fairly new invention.

Is the pokickery nut another name for the black walnut? It sounds like it from the description.

 

[George]

Is the pokickery nut another name for the black walnut? It sounds like it from the description.

No, it's the hickory nut. The reason he mentions the shell being thicker than their walnuts is that they are English, and so English walnuts are what they are familiar with. They are thinner shelled than hickory nuts.

Spence