Such a simple thing that triggered a long forgotten memory…

It was another picture perfect day in Heavensville and hubby and I had an impromptu picnic in the park.  This is the view from where I sat, captured with my Blackberry…  It was shady and warm, a soft breeze was blowing, there were ducks nearby, and I was enjoying the moment, when a kerthunk startled me.  I looked down at the ground and a squirrel on a limb overhead had shook a branch and a black walnut fell by my foot.

I had a total flashback to being a little girl again, a time when we regularly ate from the land as a means of survival.  Mother and I would gather black walnuts, pecans, walnuts and hickory nuts in the early fall.  She would sit in the living room in the evenings, listening to the Crosley Radio, and using a nut cracker, with her head bent, she would shell the nuts and dig the goodies out with a pick.  A quart Ball fruit jar would be sitting nearby, and she would plunk the nutmeats  into the jar to save for winter baking.

The black walnuts were the messiest, the hulls would stain your skin, and if you’ve never eaten them, it’s definitely a love/hate kind of food. 

I happen to be a fan, Mother’s  black walnut divinity was just the most wonderful thing…  It’s a strong flavor, really distinct, some people don’t care for, but I’ve always loved the taste.

Of all the nuts we gathered, by far, the hardest to shell, the smallest nut of all, and naturally the one that yielded the best flavor was the hickory nut.  Oh my, they were so hard to crack, and it was impossible to get the nut out in one piece, but like most things in life, whatever requires the most work yields the best rewards.

She would always save the hickory nuts until Thanksgiving and Christmas.  She made the most wonderful hickory nut cake, and hickory nut fudge, neither of which recipe I have, unfortunately.  I did find this recipe for hickory nut cake online, it’s a butter cake, that seems to be similar to hers, with it’s brown sugar frosting and hickory nut garnish.

Pecans were the easiest to gather and pluck from the shell.  We would go in the country to an area where there were pecan trees.  The farmer that owned the land would bump the trees with a tractor, so that the nuts would fall to the ground,  and then would usher you thru a gate to pick the pecans off the ground.  On the way out, your filled containers would be weighed and you were charged for the nuts.  Of course I don’t remember how much it cost, but I’m sure it wasn’t very much money.  It was always something we looked forward to every year, gathering pecans, and we would usually have a car full of women and kids off to the woods on a cool fall day.

What fond memories that squirrel triggered for me today.  I hadn’t thought of  this for years. Now if I could just get my hands on some hickory nuts to make that cake for Thanksgiving…