From Jeff Cox

Crisp fall days and cold nights. Leaves blazing in autumn colors. The first wood fires of the year. And America’s great gifts to lovers of tasty nuts: black walnuts and hickory nuts. If you live where the black walnuts and hickory nuts grow, then you know what I mean when I say that the flavor of these two nuts makes all other nuts seem bland by comparison.

Black walnut meat has a very distinct, robust, wild flavor that is to English walnuts what hickory nuts are to bland pecans. They have no cholesterol, very little saturated fat, lots of polyunsaturated fat, and some monounsaturated fat. They contain iron and other trace minerals. Like all edible tree nuts, they are a part of a heart-healthy diet.

Black walnuts can be used in any recipe calling for English walnuts, and their unique flavor stands up better to cooking. Hickory nuts may simply be the best-flavored nut in the world. Most of us know how hickory smoke infuses meats with a strong, distinct, mouth-watering aroma. That intensity and character are also found in the nuts. A chocolate chip cookie made with hickory nuts will stay in the memory forever.

When Euell Gibbons, the wild foods guy, said back in the 1970s that Grape-Nuts cereal tasted like “wild hickory nuts,” he wasn’t telling the truth. But both black walnuts and hickory nuts take an enormous amount of time and work to shell out. Their shells are hard as bone and the meat is lodged tightly in their convoluted folds. Are they available commercially? You bet. Although they aren’t organic, they are gathered from the wild across vast stretches of land east of the Mississippi River. The Hammons Products Company of Stockton, Missouri, purchases millions of wild nuts from 250 buying locations in 13 eastern states, where people—oftentimes kids making a little pocket money–bring the nuts to sell. This means the nutmeat is natural, unprocessed, and not sprayed, even if not strictly organic.

Hickory nuts have the same wild provenance, and are sold through a different company. When buying black walnut or hickory nutmeats, make sure they aren’t rancid by freezing any you don’t use right away. If you can find the nutmeats frozen, that’s a good sign and an indication of how you should store them at home. For mail order black walnut meats, visit HammonsProducts.com. For hickory nutmeats, visit RaysHickoryNuts.com. At this time of year, the nuts are at their seasonal peak.

Recipe:

These are extra yummy cookies because of the strong flavor of the black walnuts.

1 ½ cups black walnuts, chopped
3 ½ cups old fashioned organic rolled oats
1 ¾ cups all-purpose organic flour
½ lb. unsalted organic butter
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
¼ cup granulated white sugar
2 large organic eggs
2 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
¾ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg

1. Allow the butter to come to room temperature. Place a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two cookie sheets.

2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a larger bowl, cream the butter with the sugars, eggs, and vanilla extract. When it’s well-blended, mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add the oats and the black walnuts and stir them in.

3. Drop a teaspoonful of the dough onto the cookie sheets, spaced about three or four inches apart in all directions. Using the greased bottom of a glass, press each lump of dough down until it’s an even half-inch thick. Re-grease the glass bottom as necessary to prevent sticking. Bake one sheet at a time, about seven or eight minutes, or until lightly browned and nearly firm when pressed in the center of the cookie. Turn the sheet 180 degrees halfway through the baking.

4. Remove from oven when done and set aside. Place second sheet in the oven. After two minutes, remove cookies from the first sheet to a wire rack to cool. Continue until finished.

Makes about 40 cookies.
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Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Photo Credit: Mariquita Farm
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