My grandparents, father, and great grandfather re-introduced black walnuts in eastern Ontario back in the 1920s, by collecting seeds from a few mature trees left in Kingston and Montreal in two parks, growing them and planting them out. All logged out previously many decades before so even the traditional local recipes were difficult to find. So, I grew up with rare as hen's teeth (in our neck of the woods) black walnuts and nuts. Dad cracked ours using a bench mounded vice in the garage, and they weren't really edible until you lightly roasted them in an oven...only you had gone through the involved and difficult precess of getting them out of the thick, hard shell.
Ice cream is lovely...but so are nut squares, or just oven roasted and lightly sugared or salted. My absolute favourite black walnut recipe ever was a type of maple chiffon and black walnut pie served up at the Deer's Head Inn in Elizabethtown, Essex Co NY, a cooked and slightly sweet translucent and whipped filling with about the same flavour as 'maple toffee on packed snow' with the aromatic and slightly bitter roasted black walnuts in pieces within the filling, all in flaky crust. A perfect medley of sweet and bitter
From my mother's side, all immigrants from England, my mother and grandmother made pickled black walnuts from the immature seeds, husk and all (when they are the size of a ping pong ball or thereabouts.) Done up correctly, they were an acquired taste but a welcome variety of pickle cut in small slices as a savory to a sandwich or with cheese like some people used chutney.
Ice cream is lovely...but so are nut squares, or just oven roasted and lightly sugared or salted. My absolute favourite black walnut recipe ever was a type of maple chiffon and black walnut pie served up at the Deer's Head Inn in Elizabethtown, Essex Co NY, a cooked and slightly sweet translucent and whipped filling with about the same flavour as 'maple toffee on packed snow' with the aromatic and slightly bitter roasted black walnuts in pieces within the filling, all in flaky crust. A perfect medley of sweet and bitter
From my mother's side, all immigrants from England, my mother and grandmother made pickled black walnuts from the immature seeds, husk and all (when they are the size of a ping pong ball or thereabouts.) Done up correctly, they were an acquired taste but a welcome variety of pickle cut in small slices as a savory to a sandwich or with cheese like some people used chutney.
OMG!
My arteries have crystallized at the thought!
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