Supper was Hickory Nuts, here's your rock

[dirtlooter]

My grandfather told me several stories of things that had happened to different ones in the family during the Civil War. One was of an uncle who was coming home for a couple of weeks to work on the farm before going back to fight. The uncle was somewhere in what is now called Muddy Creek Game Refuge, a very remote mountainous and extremely rocky area. It was getting close to dark when he came upon a couple that had set up a camp under a large overhang for shelter.

The couple invited him to stay for supper and spend the night there in the dry. The uncle was pretty hungry and so accepted the offer. That was when the man showed him the wooden bucket full of hickory nuts and handed him a rock. So they all sat down and began cracking hickory nuts to eat, it was that they had to eat. Now I don't know if you have ever eaten a hickory nut or a pie made from them but there is very little meat in one. Plus you have to work at getting the little pieces out of the very hard nut. That makes that hickory nut pie a very expensive pie if you consider what it took to make it. I am not very fond of hickory nut but if I was hungry, they might be very good.

My grandfather used to say this about picky eater, "Well, guess they ain't hungry enough yet." He spoke of one time when an old boar possum was a welcomed sight for his then family of seven. He often referred to those years as the lean years and often said "Anything that would make a turd would save a life" and meant it. Yeah, we are a spoiled country now.

 

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[wainzoid]

I like hickory nuts. There is a local handicapped guy who cracks them and picks them out to sell. $20- for a qt freezer bag full. I usually buy a couple bags each winter. Put them in cookies, brownies, and eat them by the hands full.
There is a large flat rock in the woods at my Paps farm. My mom, as a kid, would spend hours sitting on that rock cracking hickory nuts.
Once you get the knack for it, it goes pretty well.
I also buy a couple bags of Black walnut every winter. Love them too. Local dairy makes Black Walnut ice cream in season, it and their Teaberry is my favorite.
I like to use Black Walnut hulls to make stain for my muzzleloader rifle stocks.

 

[Lunch Bag]

Great story about your grandfather in lean times.

I think you mentioned in an earlier post that you were from Mena.

Is the aircraft painting facility still there on the airfield?

 

[dirtlooter]

Great story about your grandfather in lean times.

I think you mentioned in an earlier post that you were from Mena.

Is the aircraft painting facility still there on the airfield?

yes it is, the aircraft industry is expanding pretty well. I am actually from an area about twenty miles kind of north east of Mena, Mena is the closest town.

 

[sandchip]

They are right tasty, but hell to shell. And yes, we are mighty spoiled.

 

[Peyton Manning]

I like hickory bacon

 

[lairmo]

My Grandmother always made black walnut chocolate chip cookies....until one day when her 6 grandsons exchanged the walnuts for unripe hickory nuts (still soft,immature)...we worked all day on those nuts...lol After tasting them, my Grandpa made us eat everyone of them...talk about a stomach ache!

 

[fuzzymaster]

I really enjoyed your grandfathers quotes. We are very blessed indeed.

 

[Megalodon]

I grew up gathering hickory nuts, hazel nuts, black walnuts and butternuts. The latter two had husks that would stain the heck out of your hands; then we understood why people left them on the driveway and drove over them until the husks were gone. We cracked those open in a vise.

My grandfather had an old black walnut tree come down in a storm. He milled the wood, dried it, planed it and made furniture and cribbage boards from the wood. I inherited a child's black walnut rolltop desk that he made in 1921-2 and I have passed it down to my first grandson.

Our last house had many hickory trees, but the nuts were mostly infested with small worms. The squirrels could tell which ones were infested and they didn't bother with those.

 

[fistfulladirt]

You want the Shagbark hickory, large nuts. Make sure they’ve seasoned for at least a month if fresh off the tree. I can shell about a cup’s worth of meats, about 80% perfect halves, carefully, in about an hour, using a hammer. A custom nutcracking machine is even better.

I make hickory nut bark, people have been known to die for it.

Mix two cups nutmeats and quarter cup or so of melted coconut oil or real buttah. Heat oven to about 200 degrees, spread mix on metal baking pan, bake for about 30 minutes, or until brittle crunchy.
Heat up some baking chocolate (I like almond or white), until melted. Mix in nuts, pour out onto cool baking sheet in a thin layer. Cool and break up into 2 or 3 inch squares.

Yummy!

 

[worldtalker]

I like hickory bacon

I tried this when I lived in the Great Smoky Mountains,you will like it jeff!

I STILL buy it.

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