#tree nuts

Year Two, Week One, Cuntegory Three: Tree Nuts and Their Trees

entry one: Brazil Nuts

entry two: Almonds

entry three: Pine Nuts

entry four: Pistachios

entry five: Hazelnuts

edible after tannins are leached or boiled out. Gather nuts during the fall from September to October. Only gather the ripe tan-to-brown acorns rather than the unripe green ones. To remove bitterness, shell the brown ripe acorns and remove any corky skin layers dice the meat and boil the chunks in water from 15 to 30 minutes until the water turns brown. Then pour off the water and repeat the process until the water clears indicating that the tannic acid has been removed. During the last boiling salt water can be added.Place the nuts in water. Floating nuts are the duds.

American Hazel (L)

Beaked Hazel (R)

Once hazelnut picking has been accomplished, it’s time to dry the nuts out. Start drying them within 24 hours after picking. Lay them out in a single layer on a screen to allow for good aeration. Place them in a warm, dry place and stir them around every day. Hazelnuts dried in this manner should be completely dried in 2-4 weeks.To speed up the process, you can use a food dryer. Set the temperature of the dryer to 90-105 degrees F. (32-40 C.). A food dryer will shorten the drying time to 2-4 days. You may also dry the nuts over a furnace or radiator, whatever will keep the temp around 90-105 F (32-40.5 C.). and no more than that. Also, if you shell the nuts prior to drying them, the dry time will decrease significantly. Once the hazelnuts are dry, the meat will be cream colored and firm. As long as the nuts are not shelled, hazelnuts can be stored at room temp for several months. Shelled nuts should be used within a few weeks or stored in the refrigerator, or frozen for up to a year.

Black walnut

Harvest walnuts when they fall to the ground. Native nuts come into maturity September through October. Collect nuts as soon as possible to avoid mold.Hulls soften naturally over time, allowing easy access to the nut. If the hull feels firm and is difficult to remove, set the nut aside for a few days. The best way to de-hull a small amount of walnuts is by hand, with a chisel and hammer to knock the hull away.Rinse de-hulled nuts with a powerful hose or pressure washer to remove debris.To dry walnuts in-shell, spread nuts on screen bottom trays for good circulation. Optimal drying temperature is 95-100 degrees for 3-4 days; I’ve had success setting the screened trays on cinder blocks and air drying walnuts outdoors. Walnuts are adequately dry when kernels are brittle.Store in-shell walnuts in freezer, packed in food saver bags or other air tight containers. In-shell nuts keep well for a year.

Or

Zuko: What do you mean? I eat plenty of healthy things.

Sokka: I've only ever seen you eat field rations or palace food, there is no inbetween with you.

Zuko: Okay, Mr. Meat, bold of you to be talking, but what would you consider "inbetween"?

Sokka: Um, well, I don't know. I found some tree nuts the other day?

Zuko: And you think that's between palace food and field rations?

Suki: What he means to say is just a general home-cooked meal. A small steak with potatoes, green beans, maybe some water to go with it?

Pecans come from a type of hickory tree, Carya illinoinensis. In the same plant family as walnuts (Juglandaceae), pecan trees are native to the southern US and northern Mexico. Pecans weren’t commercially grown until the late 1800s, but were important to Native Americans well before that.

This pecan specimen was collected by Sister Mary Joy Haywood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on July 14, 1965. Dr. Haywood was a biology professor at Carlow College in Pittsburgh and president of the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania for many years.

Pecan pie is an important and tasty symbol to many. The pecan tree is the state tree of Texas and the “official state nut” of Alabama, Arkansas, and California.  (If you wondered, Pennsylvania doesn’t have a state nut.)

Find this specimen here and other pecans in the herbarium: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&includecult=1&taxa=Carya+illinoiensis%3B+Carya+illinoensis&usethes=1&taxontype=2

Check back for more! Botanists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History share digital specimens from the herbarium on dates they were collected. They are in the midst of a three-year project to digitize nearly 190,000 plant specimens collected in the region, making images and other data publicly available online. This effort is part of the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project (mamdigitization.org), a network of thirteen herbaria spanning the densely populated urban corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City to achieve a greater understanding of our urban areas, including the unique industrial and environmental history of the greater Pittsburgh region. This project is made possible by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1801022.

One of the largest studies to date on nuts and diabetes was published today in Diabetologia*, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD). The study shows that approximately two ounces of nuts a day, as a replacement for carbohydrate foods, can improve glycemic control and blood lipids in those with type 2 diabetes.

Researchers from the University of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, found that tree nuts (almonds, Brazils, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, macadamias and walnuts) and peanuts improved blood lipid levels and blood sugar levels in individuals with non-insulin dependent diabetes.