Foraging (Shagbark) Hickory Nuts

Foraging (Shagbark) Hickory Nuts

I have made enemies of the forest squirrels …

As autumn falls, I find myself in a bit of a panic, trying to force in all the summer things I didn’t get a chance to do. Additionally, the change of seasons sparks something instinctual in my blood: the need to marshal and hoard resources in preparation for the coming harsh bleakness of winter. I want to reap the fields, stock the larder, fill the root cellar, hang sausages in the attic, knit an afghan, build a bomb shelter …

Careful readers know I spend quite a bit of time wandering our local forest preserves, oft with my trusty companion, B, at my side. Years ago I wrote about Che-Che-Pin-Qua and the Fountain of Youth (and never completed). More recently, I contributed ad nauseam to the cicada thread. I find my walks in the woods therapeutic, I’m generally in the “now”, especially when I have my camera in hand, and I return to the urban jungle somewhat more refreshed and focused.

When B was younger, our talk on these walks was much of a fantastical nature. We carried sticks as swords and slayed all manner of dragons and such. A bridge we often crossed sheltered a mean troll who we eventually came to terms with. The troll had an imaginatively-named son, Trollee, who would sometimes come home with us for sleepovers, though always with his mom’s permission and he had to brush his teeth.

These days, our talks are of a much more philosophical nature. What it means to be human. Ethics and morality. How to protect our planet. These discussions are often open-ended, lacking concrete questions and answers. These are dialogs of intellect, struggles for meaning, and commitments to pursue elusive truths.

Other times we talk science and nature. Ichthyology. Astronomy. Chemistry. Biology. Invasive species. Trees. I carry the same tree identification book I used in sixth grade science, and B has her own.



Other times we talk history. Politics. War. The very stories of the dirt beneath our feet. Dinosaur fossils have yet to be discovered in Illinois, but it is doubtless that they lived here. Glaciers once plowed across the land. More immediate, various tribes of American Indians lived out their nomadic lives, well, right here, where we live.

Not just any Indians, but The Three Fires Nation, consisting of the Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and Ojibwa (Chippewa) tribes. Not far from my residence, just off the corner of Lawrence and East River Rd lies the grave of Che-Che-Pin-Qua* (Chief of the Pottawatomie, aka Alexander Robinson), a hero of the Dearborn massacre and witness to the Chicago Fire. He was friends with Billy Caldwell (Sauganash). It has become common to put a coin on his burial marker for good luck. While I have not won the lottery, I have a lot of great friends.



Alexander Robinson made most of his money marrying several woman (at the same time), trading, and negotiating treaties – a sign of the change in the culture since the invasion of the Europeans. But if he were a Pottawatomie 300 years ago, this time of year he would have been seeking, slaughtering, and salting the great American bison. And he would have been frantically gathering the bounty of the forests.



So while B and I were out “lost” in the woods, rescuing damsels, solving the world issues of the day, and concluding metaphysical conundrums, we saved the GPS locations of identified Hickory Trees. Most noticeably, the Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata).

Fortunately, one doesn’t really need a tree identification book to find a Shagbark Hickory (though one wouldn’t want to find a bitternut, or even worse, a mockernut). They look just like they sound, “shaggy.”



Unfortunately, hickory trees grow very tall (120’) and it is not so easy to reach up that high.



Starting September 1st, we returned to our saved locations. Here’s where the squirrels come in. You see, the squirrels are up in the canopy collecting the nuts, too. Many fall, and on the ground, me and the B gather. The squirrels notice and skitter in rage, raining even more nuts down like depth charges. We incite and encourage their anger.

Shagbark hickory nuts grow in sets of one to three. They have a tough outer husk that is green when fresh.



As the husk dries, it darkens, and separates geometrically into four pieces.



I suggest to B that we spy on the squirrels to see where they hide their nuts and steal their horde. B questions the ethics of this and wins the moral debate.

When we get home, I put the unhusked hickory nuts on a sheet pan. After several days in the gas oven, most are ready to be shelled.



After the husk has been removed, the nut is revealed, in a shell that is somewhat difficult, but not impossible to remove. The meat is quite delicious. B describes it aptly as, “starting like a walnut and finishing like a pecan.”



Now the Indians would not have bothered with all this work-intensive shelling, which is only good for nibbling. They would pound the nuts, shell and all, in a mortar and pestle like contraption, made out of a hollow tree trunk, some hide, and some hardwood. This nut-meal is then combined with water and boiled for several hours. The resulting "milk" is said to be tasty and quite nutritious.

We return to the woods every couple days to collect what has fallen anew. While the squirrels find continued offense, after the late summer rains, the mosquitoes are an even worse enemy. They are fierce – starved, crazed, bloody thirsty. Usually they sniff and disdain my anemic blood, but now they’re desperate, ravenous for progeny. We douse ourselves in foul smelling repellents to little avail. The welts swell and blister and itch to the point of madness. We fear West Nile and the Bubonic Plague, but the quest must be fulfilled.

Why risk the wrath of skeeters and squirrels? Hickory nuts are not available commercially (well you can buy some sometimes here). A hickory tree must grow for 75 years before it even begins to produce fruit, and even then, they take a year off now and then. They are certainly delicious and nutritious.

Mrs Ramon questions my actions and sanity. I shout down her objections with vehemence. When the economy drops through the floor and our supply of plentiful and cheap food dries up, I will survive, and I may just share.

Thankfully, B agrees with me on this, or at least humors me. Here she demonstrates her nut breaking skills.



In this land of plenty, it is easy to forget the bounty that abounds around us. Eating local by definition.

BTW, B wishes you all a happy Halloween.



*It is reported that the Robinson Burial Ground is haunted. A little further west is the forest preserve grove where the Peterson/Scheussler corpses were found. But these are not stories B knows, and I will not relate them here. Boo!

-ramon

Ramon - I don't have anything of substance to add here but I do want to say that I really, really enjoyed this post.

Thank you very much for this excellent, informative and entertaining post!

Bridgestone wrote:Ramon - I don't have anything of substance to add here but I do want to say that I really, really enjoyed this post.

I too enjoyed Ramon's post and the opening line cracked me up.

Ramon wrote:I have made enemies of the forest squirrels …

Enjoy,
Gary

Ramon

Great post, nothing like a hike in the woods on a cold and sunny autumn day.When I was growing up our family owned a summer cottage that was surrounded by shag bark Hickorys. Fallen limbs were cut up to provide fuel for the Weber grill and as a young lad I found that the rock hard nut of the Hickory made for excellent sling shot ammo.
My father would often shell some of the nuts for us to try.

Ramon wrote:B describes it aptly as, “starting like a walnut and finishing like a pecan.”

It's been years since I've eaten a wild Hickory nut but for some strange reason their flavor always reminded me of Post Grape-Nuts.

This post reminded me of something I've wanted to try since daycamp in Ohio years ago: shagbark hickory syrup. According to the very nonspecific recipe of the Ohio DNR. you take some strips of Shagbark Hickory bark and essentially make a tea with them, strain it, reduce it, and add sugar until it reaches the desired consistency. I read elsewhere that it can also be done with the nut shells. There's a little mom and pop company that makes this stuff and sells it on the internet: Hickoryworks

Great post, Ramon! and congratulate B on her pumpkin!

Nice post, Ramon. When I used to go wild mushroom picking and there were no 'shrooms to be found, I would end up collecting hickory nuts and wasting more time than makes sense back home extricating the tasty morsels inside.

Wonderfully evocative piece, Ramon. Tnx for that!

In my vineyard, back in The Day, we had several hickory trees, and a black walnut or two. Hammers, of course, were the nutcrackers de rigueur, but they were crude instruments, difficult to control with any finesse.

Then my partner found these http://www.nuttrees.net/ and all was peace and harmony thenceforth.

Pricey, but worth it. Maybe a birthday/Christmas present for Mz. B, Ramon?

Geo

Thanks all!

It is my intention to shell the remaining nuts, freeze them, and bake a pie for Thanksgiving. What better way to celebrate the holiday then with a home-baked pie out of ingredients we harvested as a family.

I will follow a traditional pecan pie recipe. Anyone have the "best" one?

And yes, that is Peanut Man in the pumpkin. B has recently started another comic series, this one with much larger pictures and in color, entitled "Super Pizza Delivery Man."

-ramon

Mhays wrote:This post reminded me of something I've wanted to try since daycamp in Ohio years ago: shagbark hickory syrup. According to the very nonspecific recipe of the Ohio DNR. you take some strips of Shagbark Hickory bark and essentially make a tea with them, strain it, reduce it, and add sugar until it reaches the desired consistency. I read elsewhere that it can also be done with the nut shells. There's a little mom and pop company that makes this stuff and sells it on the internet: Hickoryworks

Great post, Ramon! and congratulate B on her pumpkin!

A blog I follow just posted the specific methodology for making [url=Beautiful Girls]shagbark hickory "syrup"[/url]