Black Walnuts

Black walnuts after dehulling

  The foraging year is winding down here in north central Wisconsin but we still have lots to do. Ann found a neighbor with black walnuts covering their lawn. A short conversation with the owner lead to Ann spending several hours picking up almost six bushels of nuts.  After several days and a few evenings of removing the hulls, we now have very stained hands and about three and a half bushels of black walnuts. If you have never cracked black walnuts they are quite difficult. We use a hammer and a big block of firewood as a anvil! A little practice soon lets you control the force of your blow to crack the nut without smashing it. Even though they are tough we can produce clean nutmeats much faster than when cracking hazelnuts because of the size. Black walnuts have such a unique taste it is hard to decide what they go with. After some experimentation, Ann and I can recommend chocolate and maple syrup! Ann used them in a carrot cake which was very good. I am pushing for maple syrup fudge with them in it now. Today we had walnuts in our wild rice which was very good although I like hazel nuts better in my wild rice. Next year I'm hoping we can find butternuts. We found a few this year but only a handful. Unfortunately, there are few large mature butternuts around here because of a disease called butternut canker.

Shelled black walnuts