Did You Know Those Annoying Black Walnuts Are Also Delicious?

Black walnut season is upon us and those giant green orbs clog up the bike lane, and mess with our lawn mowers. So get revenge: eat them.

Those green hellish husks that fall upon the roadway and in backyards throughout West Michigan every autumn are actually edible.

They look awful all over your yard, and running over them in the bike lane is a miserable experience. But maybe we need to learn how to love black walnut season.

While surfing the net I found an article about a guy who actually has turned black walnuts into a very lucrative side hustle.

Jesse Peterson collects them from lawns in Wisconsin, processes them and then sells the meat for 22 dollars a pound. Whoa! What? 22 dollars a pound? I might have to try this!

So what do black walnuts taste like? Not like the more well known English walnuts that you might buy in a store.

The black walnut has a more earthy and bittersweet taste say connoisseurs, an acquired taste, to be sure, but a delicious one.

After watching several YouTube instructional video, harvesting black walnuts takes a little effort. You have to remove those miserable green husks, and under that, the meat of the walnut is behind a pretty hard shell.

One enterprising man below uses a grout mixer to both the husks and the shells, and although it gets messy, it seems to be the most efficient method.

This guy uses a pressure washer to take care of business. And it's beginning to become apparent that it may be WAY too much work to get the nuts out.

This last video was honestly the simplest method I found, which is great if you just want to try a few for yourself, and not worry about mass producing them.

I will try this until I get a taste, then if it's worth the effort, I'll process more. Bon Appetit!