The backyard blight of black walnuts finds a new identity in the kitchen

The large yellow, greenish nuts from the black walnut tree fall throughout summer and fall, often tripping runners, chipping mower blades and staining sidewalks black. Many collect them by the bucket to remove them from yards, sometimes opting to cut down the trees entirely, Jed Portman reports for The New York Times. This is the relationship for many Americans and the eastern black walnut, which has been known to produce about 3,789 nuts in a single season.

While cleaning up after this nut may seem like a chore, it is a "blessing" for many chefs. Nashville chef Sean Brock is known for his southern cuisine, and he has taken to serving his grandmother’s black walnut fudge at Diners, his Los Angeles-based restaurant. 

Brock said the typical, store-bought walnuts are bred to be much softer and more subtle than the black walnut, which provides a blast of wine-like flavor to his dishes. Chef John Shields of Smyth in Chicago said wild-harvested black walnut has "a very strong flavor that stands up to a seared scallop or a piece of lamb in a way other nuts don’t." Describing the flavor can be difficult, but Shields said it’s damp-tasting and young with hints of citrus. 

Others have described the black walnut’s taste as somewhere between menthol and mold. Either way, the two words to remember are bold and wild — at least that’s the opinion of the American Black Walnut Marketing Board and its main benefactor, Brian Hammons of Hammons Products Co. of Stockton, Missouri.

"The company is the only remaining large-scale black walnut processor in the world, collecting millions of pounds of wild black walnuts at more than 160 strategically located processing facilities — called 'hulling stations' — across the Midwest and the South. Amateur foragers drop off truckloads of nuts collected from backyards, family farms and suburban side streets, receiving $14 per 100 pounds after hulling," Portman writes. "Hammons then sells them to major retailers, including Kroger, Publix and Walmart."

Black walnuts remain a cultural cache despite their "divisive appeal." For many, their thoughts on the black walnut can be found in the memory of their grandma's fruitcake and walnut cookies, or perhaps they are yet to be cultivated in a world of black walnut, ales, beers, sauces and pastries.