Friday, December 15, 2006
A tough nut to crack!
When we bought our house in Portales, it came with a bonus in the form of two nut trees, a pecan and a black walnut. I remembered cracking or trying to crack black walnuts as a child. My siblings and I tried every contraption known to mankind and nothing seemed to work. If someone backed over them in a car then everything was crushed flatter than a fritter. Same thing would happen if one hit them with a sledgehammer. Anything else was likely to be futile as well. An ordinary tap from a hammer could send the black nut shooting across the yard at an alarming speed—hopefully not directed at an innocent bystander. As a consequence, cracking the nut generally proved to be a solitary occupation. I am not sure how much black walnut meat I actually consumed as a child—probably less than four ounces—actually much less if one subtracts the hull mixed with the meat.
As I stood admiring our new house and the walnut tree I apparently had forgotten all my bad memories with the black walnut. The first year the tree produced only a handful of nuts. Unbeknownst to me at the time was the fact that the tree produces a harvest only every other year. I soon tied my hammock to the two trees, intending to put the black walnut to some useful purpose. The following year I suddenly realized the folly of my mistake. It was not safe to lie in the hammock when the wind blew, which was most of the time. The tree’s natural thinning process could send an unripe, but otherwise hefty missile aimed directly at the sensitive parts of one’s body. Given the size and weight of these misguided missiles, all parts of the body could be labeled sensitive. I reluctantly packed away the hammock until the dawn of the next spring.
Soon the backyard was littered with the spongy green and yellow-hulled nuts. I picked up a few and removed the pliable hulls—big mistake. My hands were soon coated with an irremovable walnut stain. I tried every cleaning agent known to mankind with no success. I then googled “black walnut stain.” To my dismay I learned that the stain is permanent. One must wait for the skin to flake off to be rid of it. Oh, well! One soon gets used to walking around with one’s hands in one’s pockets as long as one is not in mixed company. With a bumper crop of black walnuts on my hands (please note), I had no choice but to let them dry in their own hulls. Like a person with too many zucchini, I was reduced to offering them to my friends, or suckers if you prefer. I offered them as many as they wanted, but usually cut the amount by half or more with the promise they could have as many more as they wanted at a later date. There was no need to test the limits of friendship. Needless to say, no one every asked for any more and no one ever mentioned black walnuts to me again.
Since that fateful fall, knowledgeable people have told me that there are several surefire methods of shelling the difficult nut. One way is to bore a hole about the size of a nut in a board, insert the nut, hit it with a hammer and extract the meat. Another method is to first boil the nuts and then crack them. Neither method worked for me. And to be certain there is no record, unlike acorns, of how many black walnuts the Indians ate during a year. And there is certainly no mention of black walnuts during the first Thanksgiving. But the stain made an excellent war paint.
Today 45 percent of the black walnut harvest goes into the manufacture of ice cream. The remainder is sold in stores. The wood from the tree is an extremely valuable commodity. But the other valuable commodity obtained from the nut is in the form of the ground shells. They make an excellent polishing medium. The ground shells may not be as hard as diamonds, but they are close. And whereas diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, black walnuts definitely are not.
When we bought our house in Portales, it came with a bonus in the form of two nut trees, a pecan and a black walnut. I remembered cracking or trying to crack black walnuts as a child. My siblings and I tried every contraption known to mankind and nothing seemed to work. If someone backed over them in a car then everything was crushed flatter than a fritter. Same thing would happen if one hit them with a sledgehammer. Anything else was likely to be futile as well. An ordinary tap from a hammer could send the black nut shooting across the yard at an alarming speed—hopefully not directed at an innocent bystander. As a consequence, cracking the nut generally proved to be a solitary occupation. I am not sure how much black walnut meat I actually consumed as a child—probably less than four ounces—actually much less if one subtracts the hull mixed with the meat.
As I stood admiring our new house and the walnut tree I apparently had forgotten all my bad memories with the black walnut. The first year the tree produced only a handful of nuts. Unbeknownst to me at the time was the fact that the tree produces a harvest only every other year. I soon tied my hammock to the two trees, intending to put the black walnut to some useful purpose. The following year I suddenly realized the folly of my mistake. It was not safe to lie in the hammock when the wind blew, which was most of the time. The tree’s natural thinning process could send an unripe, but otherwise hefty missile aimed directly at the sensitive parts of one’s body. Given the size and weight of these misguided missiles, all parts of the body could be labeled sensitive. I reluctantly packed away the hammock until the dawn of the next spring.
Soon the backyard was littered with the spongy green and yellow-hulled nuts. I picked up a few and removed the pliable hulls—big mistake. My hands were soon coated with an irremovable walnut stain. I tried every cleaning agent known to mankind with no success. I then googled “black walnut stain.” To my dismay I learned that the stain is permanent. One must wait for the skin to flake off to be rid of it. Oh, well! One soon gets used to walking around with one’s hands in one’s pockets as long as one is not in mixed company. With a bumper crop of black walnuts on my hands (please note), I had no choice but to let them dry in their own hulls. Like a person with too many zucchini, I was reduced to offering them to my friends, or suckers if you prefer. I offered them as many as they wanted, but usually cut the amount by half or more with the promise they could have as many more as they wanted at a later date. There was no need to test the limits of friendship. Needless to say, no one every asked for any more and no one ever mentioned black walnuts to me again.
Since that fateful fall, knowledgeable people have told me that there are several surefire methods of shelling the difficult nut. One way is to bore a hole about the size of a nut in a board, insert the nut, hit it with a hammer and extract the meat. Another method is to first boil the nuts and then crack them. Neither method worked for me. And to be certain there is no record, unlike acorns, of how many black walnuts the Indians ate during a year. And there is certainly no mention of black walnuts during the first Thanksgiving. But the stain made an excellent war paint.
Today 45 percent of the black walnut harvest goes into the manufacture of ice cream. The remainder is sold in stores. The wood from the tree is an extremely valuable commodity. But the other valuable commodity obtained from the nut is in the form of the ground shells. They make an excellent polishing medium. The ground shells may not be as hard as diamonds, but they are close. And whereas diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, black walnuts definitely are not.
