r e c i p e b o x
The Black Walnut Harvest
Story and photography by jason Donohue
Black walnut trees ( Juglans nigra ) have a long and storied history in the United States . Native Americans foraged the protein rich nut and used the husk to die cloth ; Lewis and Clark took loaves of black walnut bread with them on their expeditions ; and here in Loudoun , John Singleton Mosby ( of the infamous Mosby ’ s Rangers ) in a letter described the limb of a black walnut tree he climbed onto from a window and hung while Union forces raided the house searching for him .
In more recent times however , I recall the cooler weather of fall signaling to us kids on the farm that black walnuts would soon be falling from the trees . This time of year always brought a race between us kids and the squirrels for who could gather and eat the tasty snack first .
Sometimes we would load the black walnuts in our shirts carrying them to the treehouse where we would dump them in the five-gallon bucket on the ground . We ’ d signal to the person up in the treehouse to “ real ‘ em on up ” by pulling the thick bailing twine across a pulley raising the bucket up . We would spend hours sitting on the floor of the tree house , smashing them against the wood , passing time listening to the squirrels chatter at us , jealous of
Old Fashioned Black Walnut Cookies
¾ cup butter ( room temperature ) 1 cup brown sugar ¼ cup honey 1 Tbsp . vanilla 1 egg 1 ¾ cups flour 1 tsp . salt ¾ tsp . baking soda ¾ cup black walnuts
Heat oven to 350 ° F . Cream brown sugar , butter and vanilla ; blend in egg . Combine flour , salt and baking soda , adding gradually to creamed mixture . Stir in black walnuts . Drop rounded tablespoonfuls on baking sheet . Bake 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies and 11-13 minutes for crispy cookies . Makes roughly 3 dozen large cookies .
wander I fall • winter 2021 31