Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Hickory nut frustration

We have an abundance of mature shagbark hickory trees on the LNP property. From August to October, I have to be careful where to park the car/truck. I have a couple of dents in the roof of the car as evidence.
I have already read that the hickory nut is one of the tastiest. Yesterday, we gathered about 75 nuts from under one tree (took about 1 minute...we got 'em before the squirrels found 'em).
I just messed around with cracking them open. Jeesh, what a hastle. From what I could salvage, tho, the nutmeat was excellent; kinda buttery-sweet. Now I want more, but the work involved with cracking them and attempting to salvage the nutmeat is daunting.
I googled the art of shelling hickory nuts. I tried the hammer thing on a few. It must be an artform or something. I tried simmering the nuts first in hot water. This helped by easing the cracking explosion of both the shell and the meat, but still a pain.
Is anybody an accomplished hickory nut sheller?

I like wild hickory nuts. Their taste reminds me of Post Grape-Nuts cereal.

Thanks Euell

You're welcome. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat a pine tree.

They are quite tasty. I'm not an expert but work with a guy who is. He jacks his van's rear axle a little off the ground and with the vehicle wheels spinning he feeds the nuts between the tire and driveway to dehull them. Next he puts them in a mortar mixer with water and a little sand to give them a nice cleaning/polish followed by spreading them in a single layer on a bench to throughly dry before storage.

He uses a hammer to break them open.

Oh yeah, the really nice walnut crackers...the ones that are meant to be mounted to a bench with a long handle don't do any good on hickory nuts.

You're probably better off letting the squirrels work on them then shoot the squirrel. You can remove the deshelled nuts from their pouches and eat the squirrel. I read that in a fairly famous book in middle school anyway.

Hey did you know Euell Gibbons died a natural death?

I used to know a good Euell Gibbons joke but I can't remember it.

I bush hogged our wild asparagus patch this afternoon, and thought of Euell whilst doing so. We used to have "Euell Gibbons Day" at Scout Camp, and prepare a meal from all wild, gathered foods. I made a mean sassafras tea, strained through a dirty T-shirt, each year.

Gentlemen the most effecient way I have found to crack any walnut or hickory nut is using a bench vise. This way you can adjust the angle and very the intensity of the cracking, and you don't have the exploded nut pieces to search for as with a hammer. I would say it would work to remove the husks of the hickorys as well, though I have never had much trouble shelling them by hand after a frost has hit them, they come apart pretty easily from what I have found. Brettski, you are right, they are the tastiest of nut meats, if D'ski makes chocolate chip cookies, ask here try a few hickory nuts in the next batch, delish!!!!!!

Did you know that a Pecan tree is a type of hickory tree. As a matter of fact you can graft a pecan onto a hickory tree. As far as cracking a hickory nut, I don't have a clue. I know a train can smash a nickel flatter than a dime, so you could go to the train track and put hickory nuts on it.

I have got to learn photoshop. I can't believe this is happening. Brettski makes a post about gathering nuts and about squirrels. And all we get is some very mild Euell Gibbons jokes. Sure Ryan took a shot a it (nice job by the way, loved the eat the squirrel afterwards part). But come on people. Sheesh.

The moderators might want to take the train track thing out:

"I know a train can smash a nickel flatter than a dime, so you could go to the train track and put hickory nuts on it."



My mother told me if I put a penny on the track I could cause the train to tip over and kill millions of people. I wouldn't want that to happen.

Bing

Hickory nuts are the best tasting nut without a doubt.

The best thing you can do is let them get good and dry. Put them in a warm dry place for 2-3 weeks. The meat will shrink, making it easier to extract from the shell. Unfortunately, nothing helps tenderize those rock-hard shells.

Another tasty but frustrating nut is the beechnut. The tiny, triangular nuts are delicious, but it takes forever to shell out a handful.

JHAP, I wasn't joking about the book. The boy in the story didn't eat the squirrel but took the nuts out of the squirrels cheeks just as his mother instructed. The boy's mom used the nuts on top of cake.

If anybody knows what book I'm talking about please post the name. I'm sure I read it in middle school and was probably assigned if it wasn't written by Jack London.

Is a hickory nut an acorn? I know not nuts....

Hickory nuts from a hickory tree; acorns from an oak tree.

Fish nuts from Pond Boss.

Our hickory nuts have thick, heavy duty husks that dry out and crack into perfect quarters as they fall from the trees. This reveals the shell that contains the nutmeat (or kernel...saaaalute!)
It's the shell that is a bear to crack and separate from the kernel in large pieces. The kernel is about as round as your thumbnail and about 3/16" thick; 2 pc per shell.....not very big.

I live where there are lots of hickory nuts. We also have a lot of various kinds of acorns, and we have lots of black walnuts.

Although very tasty, hickory nuts are very difficult to clean. First, make sure they are relatively dry -- the husk should be black.

Some types of hickory husks split into four or five pieces, and are easy to remove. Others are nearly solid. The easiest way to remove these solid husks is to put a pile of them where you can drive over them with your tractor or car. This also works well for black walnuts -- just don't do it anywhere near your pond with walnuts. Black walnut husks are deadly to fish.

There are places that sell hickory crackers, but "vice grips" or a bench vice will do just as well. A hammer is probably the fastest, if you know where to hit them.

If you do enough of them, you will eventually get good at finding the "seam." It will split the shell in two, and you can use a pick to pull out the nut meat. There is a lot of other material in a hickory nut. It takes a lot of work, for very little reward.

For the hickory taste, I've found easier solutions. I'm blessed with a lot of hickory trees. About once a year I'll cut down a small one -- 4 to 8 inches DBH (diameter, breast height). I cut it into 4-inch chunks that I then split into smaller pieces. We use it for smoking a variety of meats, including fish, fowl, venison, pork, and beef.