Hickory nuts...Does anyone know about them??

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Fascinating, thank you! I don't think we have the pecan weevil here in the northeast, but I would recognize that little hole as some type of weevil (we have acorn weevils here, and they make similar holes on acorns)

Yes, we too had a poor crop of hickory nuts last year, and a bumper crop this year. Even some of the smallish, young trees bore nuts this year.

I, too, use a pick to get the meat out. Good think they're not easy to extract from shell, or everyone would be collecting them. As it is, I get all I want for free...
 
Folks, I come from a long line--on my mother's side--of hickory nut enthusiast. My mother's family was from the Catskill Mts-- going back to the 1720's--and one of their major nut sources were hickory. They used them in baking, ice cream or just sat around and ate them like peanuts.(Mom made a sour milk layer cake with a hickory nut frosting that I'd kill for.) One of their winter activities was to sit around in the evening, crack and pick out nuts. My mother and her sister were experts at this and I've seen my mother go through a bushel of shucked nuts in a couple of days. As a kid I not only went on family outings to collect them but I knew where every good tree was within 5 miles of our house and would collect them in the fall. Many hickories tend to be biennial--produce every other year--so some years were better than others. The best trees were isolated in a middle of fields which discouraged squirrels or in areas where there were dogs that did the same thing.

As far as the nuts themselves. First, before choosing a tree, test one of the nuts--hammer it open on a handy rock--to be sure it is good. If it is dried up (false) or bitter, go elsewhere. Some trees produce good nuts, some have "pig' nuts which aren't eatable. The best are big ones and if you can find a tree with large nuts and thin shells you've got a winner. They are best picked up after a frost that opens the outer husk but some years, like this one, they will fall husks and all. If you collect them in the husks, spread them out and let them dry. Within a few days the husks will come off if the nut is ripe. Once "shucked" allow the nuts to dry for a few days--be careful where you store them, however, since they are fair game for mice, chipmunks and squirrels. After my mother died we found caches of nuts behind her dresser drawers and in the closets.

Now to cracking. A hammer is the worst tool, it smashes the nut and makes it tough to pick out. Ideally the best is something that squeezes the nut enough to break the shell without smashing it. The Catskill (an other Appalachian people) had an ideal tool. It is called a Roloff Cast Iron cracker. This is one that belonged to my Mom. This was one of two that she had--my younger daughter inherited the other. The problem is they are antiques and, as far as I know, no longer being made. (I saw one for sale on ebay at one time.) Unless you're lucky at an antique store or garage sale you may not find one but I'll tell you they work great. If your careful you can just crack the nut's shell and the meat comes out whole. Just inset the nut and press down on the handle. Otherwise it is a lot of work with a nut-pick. BTW--the inner shell is exactly the same color as the meat so miss one and you can crack a tooth. Now there are other crackers that are claimed to work for hickories but this is the absolute best. If you try some other cracker be warned these nuts are tough (not as hard as a black walnut or butter nut but hard). Some people will use vise grips but it is a lengthy process.

BTW that nut is the size of a small pullet egg and came from one of the trees I planted 20 years ago--this it the first year we've gotten a crop.

Once you've picked out the nut, dry them--my mother often spread them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven--and they can be stored in a plastic bag in the freezer. Like that they are nearly indestructible. My mother last picked out nuts in 2003 and we still are using some of them from our freezer. Again a warning from above--before using look them over very carefully because the shells are really easy to miss.

Now there are, as I said above, hickory nuts and hickory nuts. Some are good, some are so hard you can't crack them. In that case follow the advice given by a friend of my brother when he lived in NC. "Let the squirrels eat the nuts, shoot the squirrels and eat them."
 
Woodmort, great post! I haven't seen a nutcracker like the one in your pic, but I have one like this:
http://www.nativenuts.com/hardshell-nutcracker/
It, too, works very well, because you have great control when you crack it. I apply enough pressure just to crack the shell, then rotate the nut slightly, crack it again, etc.

Interesting to see that you call the ones that taste bad "pig nuts". Here we have 2 species of "pignut" (Carya glabra and Carya ovalis), and both are sweet and edible. The only bitter ones I have encountered is bitternut (Carya cordiformis). Nuts from the bitternut look a lot like nuts from pignut trees, so it's hard to tell the difference when looking at just the nut (must observe tree characteristics).

The link I provided above describes finding and harvesting the nuts. For anyone interested, I just posted one of my recipes using hickory nuts: Birch syrup ice cream with buttered hickory nuts:
http://ouroneacrefarm.com/birch-syrup-ice-cream-buttered-hickory-nuts/
 
Janet--any cracker that it strong enough to break the shell without pulverizing the meat will work--trouble is that combination is hard to find. The Roloff one does the operation in one motion--generally in a family group one person cracked while the rest removed the meat. Most nutcrackers, i.e. the kind in the ballet, are made for English walnuts and almonds and aren't strong enough for hickories. Smashing them with a hammer, as suggested, is a waste of nuts, you can't really control it. In this area any hickory nut that was uneatable was known as a "pig nut"--I imagine because the natives figured they were only good for the pigs--in fact I was not familiar with the term "bitter nut" until I took dendrology in college. Otherwise the locals just called them hickory nuts without distinguishing between the species--most in this area are shagbark- carya ovate. I planted both it and the king (shellbark) nut--carya lacinosa. Actually the glabra is the pig nut, ovalis is the red hickory.
 
Yeah, agree on the whole cracking issue.

One common name for C. ovalis is "sweet pignut", but I've heard red hickory too. I think I understand the confusion about edibility of "pignuts". I've been eating "pignuts" for years, mostly C. glabra, despite people telling me they're inedible. Some people call the bitternut (C. cordiformis) a pig nut because pigs eat them even though they're too bitter for the human palate. But perhaps the sweet and edible C. glabra and C. ovalis were nicknamed pignuts because "when cut, the nut resembles the front aspect of a pig's nose": http://www.eattheweeds.com/cayra-coffee-or-hickory-java-2/
...Having the same common name as C. cordiformis must have made people think C. glabra and C. ovalis are also good for pigs but not humans.
 
Also most "pig" nuts are small, most people wouldn't want to take the time to crack and pick them out.
 

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