Black walnuts

[fryboy]

Walnuts ,I love them,I could eat them till the Cows come home.I like a few sprinkled on my Porridge in the morning.

you do know of course that black walnuts are a bit different than what is often termed the english walnut ? ( the walnut meat most often sold in stores ) black walnut has a slightly different taste that i can only term as more "earthy" , it also (as noted by a few above ) has a much much tougher hull ( ok ok so that's my understatement of the day )

[44man]

Looks good. We love black walnut meat and carol cracks many. We have a nut cracker that does the job. This year is crazy with most 3" or larger.
Walnuts on pumpkin pie with whipped cream is heaven.
I don't know if the roller is any better then the pooper scooper.

[fryboy]

3" and crazy ... ye olde saw is that the thicker the hull on the nuts the longer and colder the winter will be ...let's hope that they're wrong !!
mmm cream such as one of me fav 3 flavors ? black walnut ice cream ? ( dang that makes me hungry and i just had lunch [doh] )

[skeettx]

Dad used to use the Black Walnut husks for fishing.
He put them in a tow sack and beat them up with a limb
and then weighted the bag and threw it into a small pond.
The fish floated up and he snagged them.

Mike

p.s. Why is it called a tow sack?
Probably because it is made of tow which are the waste fibers of flax or hemp that you don't use for making proper cloth.

He he he , I like youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M35erdt_r7E

[Col4570]

I read somewhere that Abraham Lincoln could Crack walnuts between his forfinger and thumb.

[Col4570]

Fryboy ,thanks for that info,I had no idea that it was a different species.i must confess I know nothing of Black Walnuts.We live and learn.Regards.

[fryboy]

you're welcome ! i wasnt sure if you was aware or not but wanted to make sure , i'm also not sure if it's a good thing or not as you dont know what you're missing ( danged double edged sword lolz ) everyone doesnt care for them ( as noted above ) but those who do ...really do ! ( including me lolz ) in addition to the slightly earthier taste to me they also seem a wee bit richer and the flavor is actually kind of complex , the hulls as noted are harder/thicker but for those whom like them well worth the extra effort ! dont get me wrong the english walnuts are also good ( and way easier to crack open ) and usually have a slightly larger meat in the center

[Rockydog]

I grew up on a Wisconsin farm that was loaded with Black Walnut, Butternut and Hickory trees. We used to pick black walnuts by the pick up load. Pick up boxes were smaller then, with the fenders on the outside but still held 20-25 burlap bags full. We had a fairly long limestone gravel drive on the farm. We'd just pour the walnuts and butternuts out on the drive and run over them with the driveway traffic for about 10 days. They were completely hulled with very few smashed even when running wagon loads of corn pulled by tractors over them. Then we had to pick them up a second time. They'd go to the basement where we'd crack a couple of ice cream pails full at a time and take them to the kitchen table for picking. Quite a lengthy process. Cracking butternuts was the worst. More than one black thumb or finger resulted from a missed whack on a butter nut. RD

[snowwolfe]

I think I love every type of nut there is EXCEPT black walnuts, yuck. Lol
Of course it might have something to do with my father who made me shell them so he could sell them and keep all the money.

[Plate plinker]

Black walnuts are my absolute favorite tree nut. I make my wife put them in every cookie she makes.

[Iowa Fox]

My M-I-L now gone was into walnuts in a big way. She ran them thru the corn sheller to get to hulls off and then put them in an old wringer style washing machine to was the black goo off. After a couple rinses they went on her 4x8 drying trays for a couple months in the machine shed. Not uncommon for her to do 10-15 5 gal buckets of washed/dryed nuts a year. My wife might do 1 to 2 five gal buckets a year. The walnuts aren't bad but give me hickory nuts any day. The squirrels won't touch a walnut here until the hickorys are gone. My wife uses a big gear driven nut cracker thats probably as old if not older than she is. Makes quick work of the cracken business.

[44man]

I watched deer eat hickory nuts. I don't know what they do with shells. Squirrels have been going crazy in the yard. We have only grays here, can't figure out why they are not stained from the husks.
My woods is full of walnut trees and paw paw trees. Everything loves the paw paw fruit.

[pmer]

I just had my first go with Black Walnuts and they are good. My MIL has a few trees and they never really did anything with them but pick up and toss them away.

I thought well might as well give it a try. I picked a bucket full and took them home and got on the google. I took a few that had loose skins and took that off. To clean them I used compressed air to blow the access skin material off. Then baked them at 300* for about 25 minutes.

That seemed to work good. Is it better to air dry them?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Coincidentally, yesterday, I was watching my elderly neighbor and his millennial son (who lives in the basement and who I've never seen do any yard work ) picking up Black Walnuts...looks like a bumper crop, 8 garbage bags full from their one tree...I could see the son was NOT happy.

[Wayne Smith]

Quick story, since I am diabetic and LOML is allergic to wheat and milk - I created my own diabetic, wheatless, milkless pancake mix. Because I need protein I grind up nuts to add to it. A few years ago Sam's started carrying black walnut meats, seasonally. I buy enough for the year in the fall - because the first year I ran out. Made the pancakes with European walnuts. "What is WRONG with these pancakes!?" was the first thing out of her mouth when tasting them. I now make sure I have enough for the year.

[country gent]

We used to reset the hand crank corn sheller to remove the husks from our black walnuts as long as they were still firm and solid it worked good if they were soft and greasy not as good. The husks when greasy would stain really bad also.

[vzerone]

Jon I have a bumper crop of them too this year. Unfortunately I don't do anything with them. Now my wife loves nutroll and makes it often, but she won't use black walnuts. She liked them with English walnut.

[Boaz]

As a kid we gathered em in tow sacks . Threw em under the porch or anywhere that stayed dry for a few months to dry . The husk comes off easy . Mom loved to put em in baked goods . Us kids used a claw hammer to crack and then pick the nuts out . A form of torture for children , like shelling peas .

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I really like English walnuts, and each year, I order some directly from a farmer in CA.
I wish I liked the black walnuts, I just don't have a taste for them.
Black walnut trees are plentiful around my area and I have access to many...in fact, about 15 years ago, when I had a sideline selling excess garden produce at the farmers market, I'd help a few different neighbors cleanup their yard and haul the black walnuts away, and sell them whole/fresh at the farmers market for $5 for a 5 gallon bucketful. Back then others were selling hand "processed" black walnut meats for about $10 per lb. All I know is, I'd rather sell ten buckets full of whole/fresh nuts for $50, then process and sell 5 lbs of nut meats for $50

[crowbuster]

Amen to that Jonb. Lots o nuts again this year. We love hickory nut pies as well as black walnut pies. And ground walnuts on pan fried pork chops. ooooweeeeee. Whats others favorite way to eat em ?