Black Walnuts, Yum

Every fall, the half-dozen or so black walnut trees on our property pepper the yard with their billiard ball-sized progeny. After nearly twisting my ankle stepping on them repeatedly the first year we lived here, I vowed to do something with them to make the trees earn their keep.

I asked for a nut roller for Christmas, and the next year I started collecting black walnuts. The meat of black walnuts is loaded with beneficial compounds, which is benefit number one of black walnuts. 

Black walnuts make you earn those benefits, however. 

First there's the green (or black as it breaks down) outer hull to get through. This is guaranteed to stain your hands and clothing if you're not careful -- so wear gloves and maybe an apron. Definitely do not wear your Sunday best for this job.

I process my walnuts in a trashcan with some water and a paint/cement mixer to churn the nuts against each other to break down the outer part. Any hull-free nuts that float are duds -- minimal meat, mostly air pockets. Get rid of them.

The jet black liquid you get from processing the walnuts can be used to make a dye for natural fabrics. The result is a lovely light brown color. So, that's benefit number two of black walnuts.

After they dry in the sun for a while, I bag them up in a burlap sack so they continue to get air as they cure. In the shell, black walnuts will last for months to years. I'm just now processing the nuts I bagged up two years ago, and they're about 50/50 good vs duds that have gone bad over time. So maybe a smaller interval between harvest and finishing is better....

Before I get cracking, I soak my walnuts in water overnight -- a trick I learned from Feral Foraging on YouTube. I don't follow his entire formula, but the soaking definitely makes cracking these tough nuts considerably easier. Without the bath, they're much more likely to explode like a hand grenade when pressed.

It's tedious, time-consuming work. It's also mindless, which allows me to catch up on a Netflix show or listen to a podcast as I work my way through a mound of nuts. So far, I've produced about three quarts of nut meats, which I packaged for sale at our last farmers market. 

Sadly, I got no takers, but I love black walnuts and I'm sure plenty of other people out there do as well. They just don't know it yet.

Just for good measure, here's a bunch of recipes using black walnuts.