My town have a plantation of Juglans nigra. These nut trees don’t grow usually in France yet when I decided to have a taste of them, I thought I would handle it like another nut. But they are different.
I try to have the green shell to dry completely before peeling them off. But I couldn’t so I went with a knive to get ride of it before they turn bad. The nuts are smaller than the one that grows here but so hard I can’t crack them with a nutcraker.
Should I have wait longer before picking them up ? What is right to great ride of the green skin ? How could I crack them ?
It’s called “black walnut” in most places where it grows natively. You can find some good resources on it if you Google that. The main thing is if they are super hard, just wait for the green part to soften a bit; a few days should be good enough. People have made a bunch of mechanisms to get rid of the husk, but the simplest way I think is to just put them on the ground somewhere concrete or stone, and stomp on them with heavy boots. I suppose it would probably be better for your ankles to use a heavy log or something like that like a giant mortar and pestle. You then want to rinse them with water by soaking them in a bucket. Some will float, and those are apparently empty nuts (the actual seed was aborted). After, you dry them out on a screen for a few weeks. To crack the nuts open, they are much stronger than European walnuts, so most people use a bench vise
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I crack them into halves outside in 5 pound batches, then pick out the meats indoors while watching tv or whatever.