Not Far From The Tree goes nuts!
Oct 19th, 2009 by Marc Michalak
Not Far From The Tree recently had an intriguing proposition from the city’s much-loved St. John’s Bakery: “Bring us some nuts from local trees and we’ll bake them into our bread.” Wow! Sounds great!
We had a few black walnut trees already registered with us, despite not having harvested any nut trees before, so we thought it was going to be a no-brainer. All we had to do was research how to dehull, crack, and roast the nuts and voila – roasted, delicious nuts ready for delivery. As it turned out, the task was quite demanding.
The three trees registered with us proved fruitless: a volunteer gleaner and I got to one walnut tree after the nuts were all gone; the registered tree owner of another tree had recently moved; and we never heard back from the third. However, determined to harvest black walnuts in the city, I managed to collect 20lbs worth from a tree in south Etobicoke.
So now what! Actually the dehulling was remarkably easy. I had to wear latex gloves so as to avoid any serious staining since the outer shell releases a rich black dye. Once the fruits were dehulled, I washed and then dried them overnight on some newspaper.
Then came the fun part: I spent about 2 hours cracking the nuts outside with a hammer and knifing out the meat (only cut myself once!).
So how much meat do you get from 20lbs of nuts? I estimate it was about 200-400 grams. Not bad I think, for a first foray into the local Toronto nut world. I then roasted the nuts in a frying pan until they were lightly browned. And done! The nuts, as well as some pears and apples from other picks, were delivered to St. John’s Bakery last week. As an added bonus, instead of throwing out the hulls, Not Far From The Tree gave the hulls to a local artist who is going to try to use them for their natural dye. (We hope to have some of his finished artwork on display at our End-Of-Season Celebration on Thursday, November 5th.)
What may have seemed just like squirrel food is now transformed into food for humans, too.
What? I didn’t think people actually ATE black walnuts! We have a huge tree in our yard and are forever picking up the nuts from our lawn – we have no idea what to do with them other than feed them to the squirrels. They stain our patio, and we can’t grow anything underneath the tree. But maybe I will try my hand at harvesting them next year???
Our mum once made pickled walnuts from the fruits of a black walnut tree at the foot of the garden she had at the time. Pickled walnuts are a very English preserve, said to be good with cheese such as stilton. I don’t know how hers turned out, as at the time I was a fussy teenager.
Just searched for a recipe, and found this on the blog of The Cottage Smallholder. It requires the fruit/nuts to be picked in June, when they’re a mature size but before the inner shell has a chance to harden. Have a look:
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/the-pickled-walnuts-project-stage-two-plus-free-original-recipes-for-spiced-pickling-vinegar-792
Just after roasting them I sampled some and the black walnuts have an intense flavour to them…almost spicy. Very refreshing! I hope we can get to a few more trees next year and get more people involved. I hear you Jenn about the staining. I grew up with a black walnut tree next door and when clothes were drying on the line they would often get stained by the juices from the nuts when squirrels were munching on them up in the tree. But wow, its worth the work to get to those tasty nuts. No wonder the squirrels love them!!
Hey,I live in South Etobicoke and gathered some walnuts from Lakeshore Drive a couple years ago but didn’t know what to do with them.
I would love to come out his year and help pick the fruit and nuts in South Etobicoke.