Cracking walnuts by the wood stove in my grandfather's shop is a precious memory to me.
Grandpa would drive the tractor pulling a little 2 wheel cart with us grand kids in it up a narrow treacherous road to the walnut trees.
There we would fill burlap sacks with unhulled American Black Walnuts.
My modern version is my 4 wheeler and handy cart.
Then the walnuts were pored out in the driveway and run over several times to crush the hulls. Then they would lay there for a few days to dry. Next, grandma would give us gloves so we could pick out the walnuts and hopefully, not stain our hands too badly.
My little cart load netted about 15 gallons of walnuts.
Now the really hard part, cracking the nuts with a hammer.
We use to have grand plans of cracking them and saving the nuts for a snack during a long car trip. I don't think I was ever able to save more than a small handful. They were just too good and had to be eaten as soon as I was able to dig a little nugget out.
My will power is a little better now and I am usually able to save enough to top a sweet potato casserole at Thanksgiving.
I grew up in Ohio and there were a number of black walnut trees on our farm. We collected them the same and left them in the drive way until dry. They are so hard to crack. We had an older man that collected them, cracked them and picked them out, he then sold them by the quart. That was a lot of work but he was retired and that was his past time. The state would also buy the whole nut from us to replant in state parks.
ReplyDelete