Black Walnut

New IDs can be such fun! Black Walnut, Juglans nigra, was such a total surprise. I came home with photos of leaves and a couple of fruit in a pocket. I had not the slightest clue that walnuts come inside these big balls of hard and roughened green fruit until I hit the books.

Once I knew what I had, I trimmed away some of the fruit to get down to the nut and then went all the way to split a nut. Peeling down to the nut stained my hands--it looked like I'd spilled walnut colored oil-based wood stain! :-) Isn't the inside of the nut so beautiful? That creamy white was another surprise. Smelly too.

The Black Walnut Tree
by Mary Oliver

My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood-an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants us to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don't do
anything. That night I dream
of my fathers out of Bohemia
filling the blue fields
of fresh and generous Ohio
with leaves and vines and orchards.
What my mother and I both know
is that we'd crawl with shame
in the emptiness we'd made
in our own and our fathers' backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, whip
crack of the mortgage.




From Wikipedia:

The extraction of the kernel from the fruit of the black walnut is difficult. The shell is covered by a thick husk that exudes a dark, staining, strong-smelling juice. The juice will often be a yellow-brown at first, and then rapidly assumes a deep black-green color upon exposure to the air. The shell often protrudes into the meat so that whole kernels often cannot be obtained.

The husk is best removed when green as the nuts taste better if it is removed then. Rolling the nut underfoot on a hard surface such as a driveway is a common method; commercial huskers use a car tire rotating against a metal mesh. Some take a thick plywood board and drill a nut sized hole in it (from one to two inches in diameter) and smash the nut through using a hammer. The nut goes through and the husk remains behind. To keep the husk juices from splattering, a board or canvas scrap may be used to cover the nut before hammering. The black walnut’s husks are known to leave durable, hard to remove stains on hands and clothing.

Before eating or storage, the nuts should be cured in a dry place for at least two weeks. Before cracking, the unshelled nuts may be soaked in hot water for 24 hours in order to soften the shells, but with a proper cracker this is not necessary. While the flavor is prized, the difficulty in preparing the black walnut may account for the wider popularity and availability of the Persian walnut.

"Juglans nigra." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 8 Oct 2009, 23:52 UTC. 9 Oct 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juglans_nigra&oldid=318762320>.