Wild Summer and Fall Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)

SUMMER AND FALL WILD PLANT FOODS

NUTS

There is a tremendous variety of nuts which grow on trees in the mountains. White and black walnuts, hickory nuts, and hazelnuts are usually eaten plain or used in baking. Chinquapins, beechnuts and wild chestnuts are sometimes eaten plain, but more often they are roasted or boiled in water for twenty to thirty minutes. Chestnuts are sometimes used in stuffing for turkey. Any kind of nut can be stored for the winter. Take the hull off the nuts, except beechnuts, before storing.

Black walnut (Juglans nigra) (family Juglandaceae)

Black walnuts are large trees up to 150 feet high, in rich mountain coves or along streams. They have frequently been planted and mark old homesites long after the dwellings are gone. Walnut wood has been prized for gunstocks and fine furniture, and as a result walnut trees have been almost completely eliminated in some areas. The bark is dark, often moss-covered. The black walnut has twigs with a light pith and very large leaves with many leaflets. Twigs and foliage have a characteristic odor. The flowers are green catkins that appear with the new leaves.

Walnuts are round and dark with a hard four-celled kernel, covered by a thick, greenish husk. The hulls yield a brown dye. Nut meats are prized for candies, cakes, and cookies.

ILLUSTRATION 53 Black walnut

Black walnut pudding: ½ cup finely chopped walnuts; one tablespoon butter; four teaspoons cornstarch; ½ cup milk; two egg yolks; three egg whites; ¼ teaspoon salt; tiny bit of cream of tartar; ¼ cup granulated sugar; one teaspoon maple flavoring. Butter a baking dish. Mix all ingredients except egg whites. Place in greased baking dish. Top with well-beaten egg whites. Bake at 350° about forty-five minutes.

Walnut pickle: Gather the nuts when they can be easily pierced with a needle. Soak in brine one week. Remove and sun for a few hours. Soak in cold water for twelve hours. Put in jars and pour over them boiling-hot vinegar to which has been added one teaspoonful each of ginger, cloves, mace, and pepper; two onions; a small quantity of horseradish; and two pods red pepper for each quart vinegar. Cover well. The pickles will be ready for use in a month or more.

Butternut (Juglans cinerea) (family Juglandaceae
(white walnut, oil nut)

The butternut is a rather uncommon tree, found in rich river bottoms and valleys in the mountain regions at lower altitudes. It is a medium-sized tree with smooth gray branches and dark bark. Green flowers appear with the leaves, which have eleven to seventeen leaflets with sticky petioles. Nuts are oval in a very thick, sticky hull and can be ground into flour or oil, or can be pickled when green. They can be substituted for black walnuts in any recipes calling for such nuts.

Jake Waldroop says that butternuts “are mostly just to eat. They’re sweet. You let them dry and crack them up and they’re good.”

ILLUSTRATION 54 Butternut hickory

Pecan (Carya illinoensis)
(king nut)

The pecan is not native to the mountain area, but often is found growing around old homesites, and sometimes in woods’ edges where the nuts have been planted by squirrels or bluejays. It is a large tree, fifty to one hundred feet high, with brown bark. Leaves have seven to nine slightly downy leaflets. Flowers occur with the young leaves. The oval nuts have very thin husks and shells and very sweet kernels.

Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata)

The shagbark is a tremendous tree found on mountain slopes and in rich coves. The shaggy bark separates in layers and is a distinctive feature of this hickory. Leaves are very large with eleven to seventeen leaflets. Nuts have thin shells and are very sweet and edible.

Shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa)

The shellbark is more commonly found in the Mississippi River Valley or in the central heartlands. It is occasionally found in the mountains along streams. It has a flaky bark and one- to two-foot leaves, with seven leaflets. Nuts are in a thick, bony shell.

Mockernut (Carya tomentosa)
(white heart hickory)

Mockernut is a common tree found in oak-pine woods and on chestnut-oak ridges. It is a large tree with ridged gray bark, and leaves with seven large, rather smooth leaflets. The nuts are large, with thick shells and on individual trees vary in size and thickness of hulls and in edibility.

Pignut hickory (Carya glabra)
(sweet pignut)

The pignut hickory is a small or medium-sized tree found in oak-pine woods in dry, light soil. It has ridged bark and smooth leaves with three to seven (usually five) leaflets. Nuts are small and slightly flattened in a thin hull. Nuts on individual trees vary greatly—some are acrid and bitter, others sweet and edible.

Hickory nuts have always been good eating worth the effort of getting them out of their shells. If a girl really liked a young man she would go to the considerable trouble of making him a hickory nut cake. Nuts were also used in candy and cookies. Hickory bark was broken off and chewed by many as chewing gum, as with the bark of the sweet birch.

ILLUSTRATION 55 Pignut hickory

Jake Waldroop told us, “That was the wild hog’s feed for all winter. The nuts fall off and the leaves fall on them, and they’ll lay there all winter. You take the scaly bark nut—now you can crack them if you’ve got good sound, strong teeth. Why, I’ve cracked many of’em with my teeth. They have the biggest kernel of any hickory nut. I’ve gotten bushels on the ridge right up there.”

Hickory nut cake: ½ cup butter; one cup sugar; three egg whites, beaten stiff; half cup milk; 1½ cups flour; ¾ cup chopped hickory nut meats; one teaspoon cream of tartar; ½ teaspoon soda. Preheat oven to 350°. Cream butter and sugar, add milk and flour alternately. Add eggs and nuts, and beat until smooth. Then sprinkle in cream of tartar and the soda dissolved in one teaspoon milk. Beat and place in a greased and floured pan and bake forty-five minutes.

Nut brittle: spread hickory nut meats in a shallow pan. Melt white or brown sugar in a saucepan; pour over nuts quickly, shaking it all the time. Let set. Break into small pieces.

Hickory nut pie: Use one cup syrup; three eggs; ¾ cup chopped hickory nuts; ½ cup sugar; ¼ pound butter; one teaspoon vanilla. Place hickory nuts in unbaked pie shell. Mix syrup, sugar, and eggs together well. Add melted butter and vanilla. Pour mixture over nuts. Place in 400° oven. Bake ten minutes (IMPORTANT!) and then reduce heat to 300° and bake thirty minutes. (Pecans or walnuts may be used, instead.)

Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta, Corylus americana) (family Corylaceae)
(beaked hazelnut, filberts)

The American hazelnuts are shrubs found in thickets on hillsides and along streams. Both shrubs have soft brown bark. Male flowers appear as long catkins, called lamb’s tails, which form in late autumn, and lengthen into masses of yellow pollen in early spring. Both species have similar round-toothed leaves, but the American hazelnut has its nut in a ruffled husk, while the beaked hazelnut has a long, beaked nut covering.

ILLUSTRATION 56 Hazelnut

Besides being good to eat, especially roasted, the nuts would be used to tell fortunes on Halloween. If you named the nuts for your sweethearts and placed them on an open fire, the nut that jumped or cracked first represented the lover who would come calling first.

Nuts could be ground into meal to make filbert bread, or grated hazelnuts added to cake frostings.

Toasted hazelnuts: heat ½ cup butter or margarine. Add one pound shelled nuts. Cook until the nuts are a deep brown, stirring often. Drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt.

Hazelnut cookies: one egg white; one tablespoon sugar; ½ cup flour; one teaspoon baking powder; one cup grated nuts. Mix, drop in small spoonfuls on a greased tin. Bake in moderate oven.

Sugared nut meats: ¼ cup vegetable oil; two cups powdered sugar; two teaspoons rum flavor; dash of cinnamon; dash of nutmeg; dash of ginger; 1½ cups shelled nuts. Cream oil, sugar, flavoring and spices. Spread nuts on cookie sheet, heat in moderate oven ten minutes. Turn hot nuts into the cream mixture and stir. Separate and spread on a cookie sheet to cool.

Many recipes using nuts can be adapted for whatever species is available, or various kinds of nuts can be used in combinations. The recipe given below can be used for walnuts, hickory nuts, or hazelnuts.

Nut brittle squares: butter the outside bottom of an eight-inch-square pan, and spread evenly with one cup finely chopped nuts. Set pan, nut side up, on a tray. Put one cup sugar in skillet and heat, stirring until golden brown and syrupy, pour over nuts at once. When slightly cooled, remove in one piece to a board and cut into two-inch squares.

Beech (Fagus grandifolia) (family Fagaceae)

Beech is a beautiful forest tree with smooth bark and graceful branches. It grows along streams and on rich bluffs and banks. Its leaves are shiny, very regularly veined, and turn bright yellow in early autumn. The beech flowers in the early spring with the newly green leaves. The small, triangular, edible nuts are encased in a very prickly bur. The nuts are rich in protein, calcium, and phosphorous. Roasted beechnuts were once ground and used as a coffee substitute. They were also ground for cooking oil, meal, or made into beechnut butter.

ILLUSTRATION 57 Beechnuts

Chestnut (Castanea dentata) (family Fagaceae)

The American chestnut was once a dominant tree of the mountains before the chestnut blight spread across the hills and devastated the chestnut forests. Jake Waldroop said, “I’ve seen the time when you could go out on this hill and pick up about three bushels a day. They was laying there by the thousands of bushels—hundreds of acres covered by chestnuts. Now we don’t have any chestnuts. A blight hit up here and killed’em all. Some people think that they’ll come back again, but as for me, I don’t know. I don’t think they will. I’ll find some (the trees) every once in a while as big as my leg and then there’ll come a big brown spot on it and it’ll die.”

Sprout growths of chestnuts still struggle for existence on the hills. Occasionally a tree reaches a size large enough to bloom with showy white flower spikes, and bears a crop of rough husked nuts. The chestnut is enclosed in a hard brown outer shell and a bitter inner skin that is usually peeled off before using. The nut is made up almost entirely of carbohydrates and water. They can be ground into flour or added to bread.

Chestnut croquettes: mix one cup mashed, boiled chestnuts with ¼ teaspoon vanilla, two beaten egg yolks, two tablespoons cream, one teaspoon sugar. Shape in balls, roll in crumbs, and fry in deep fat.

ILLUSTRATION 58 Chestnuts

Chinquapin (Castanea pumila) (family Fagaceae)

The chinquapin is a spreading shrub, or small tree, found on mountainsides and in the piedmont oak-pine woods. It is more resistant to blight than the American chestnuts, and is still abundant in some areas, bearing a crop of small, but very sweet and edible nuts. Leaves are slender, toothed slightly, and dark green in color. Racemes of white flowers appear in the early summer. The nuts are enclosed in very prickly burrs.

Rev. Morgan told us about a chinquapin tree they used to play in as children. “We would climb and make a treehouse in it. We didn’t use chinquapins in cooking. We would boil them and the girls would string them on threads and wear them as necklaces. Then, if they could get by with it, they’d eat them during school. We’d play games with chinquapins, one was jack-in-the-bush.”

Chinquapin stuffing: use finely chopped or ground nuts instead of bread crumbs in your favorite stuffing recipe. The small, sweet chinquapins can also be used in any chestnut recipe.

ILLUSTRATION 59 Chinquapins

White oak (Quercus alba) (family Fagaceae)

The white oak is a common forest tree, growing to gigantic size, with flaky white bark and scalloped, thin, green leaves. Catkins appear with the new leaves in early spring. The large acorns mature in one year, and can be made into flour, or boiled or roasted for food. Today few people will bother with the slow process necessary to make acorn flour, but it was once a staple of pioneer diet. Acorns were used to make flour when, as Laurabelle York said, “Times were rough.” It was usually mixed half and half with regular flour. To make it, peel and roast acorns until they are thoroughly dry, but not burned. Pound them into a powder and use this powder as flour.

The large acorns of the chestnut oak (Quercus prinus) and the yellow chestnut oak (Quercus muehlenbergia) can also be prepared for food but aren’t as sweet as those of the white oak.

ILLUSTRATION 60 White oak leaves and acorns

Coffee: parch acorns, and grind. It makes a red coffee—“real good, just as good as bought coffee.”

Baked acorns: make slit in the acorn shell. Bake until shells crack off.

Acorn Indian pudding: one cup acorn meal; four cups water; sorghum syrup. Put three cups water on to boil. Mix meal with remaining cup, stir until smooth. Add to boiling water, stir until thickened. Add syrup. Cover and cook fifteen minutes at low heat.

Acorn meal: grind acorns, spread meal ½-inch thick on a porous cloth and pour hot water over the meal. Repeat several times. Meal can be used instead of cornmeal. OR: boil acorns two hours, pour off black water; soak in cold water three to four days, then grind into a paste. This makes bread dough. OR: pulverize acorns. Allow water to trickle through meal for twenty hours. Dry and grind again. Use one cup acorn meal to one cup regular flour in muffins.