Pickled Walnuts

I’ve been working up to this post in some of my previous posts (“Walnut Catsup,” “Ketchup and Vinegar,” and some notes about the progress of our own walnuts). I hope you’ll bear with this fairly long entry, given that blog entries are “supposed” to be quick little “thots” only 800 words long. Don’t worry, I’m breaking it up with pictures.

So: remember that 1880s recipe I gave you in the post for Walnut Catsup—apparently pickled walnuts, which could be ground up into a paste? Well, it turns out that one small, family-run company here in Missouri makes the pickled walnuts for you. So you can try it first without going to all the hassle of picking, pickling, and processing the nuts yourself.

The company is called Barnicle Farms—it’s Tony and Lorraine Barnicle, down in Mary’s Home, Missouri. They have a Web site, so you can learn more and order your own pickled walnuts. Easy to remember: http://www.barniclefarms.com/.

Their story is pretty simple—they were visiting friends in London in 1981 and had some pickled walnuts there. Pickled walnuts are an English tradition; Evelyn Waugh and Charles Dickens, for instance, mentioned the food in their writings (the Barnicles quote the passages in their promotional literature).

Of course, the walnuts that the Barnicles ate in England were English walnuts, a.k.a. Persian walnuts, the kind labeled here in America as just “walnuts.” But the type that Missouri is so famous for is the black walnut, whose nutmeats have a much richer, stronger, darker flavor. So the Barnicles did their homework, experimented with traditional recipes, and pioneered the process of pickling Missouri’s black walnuts.

As of 2003, they were approved by the USDA and received certification with the Agri-Missouri program of the Missouri Department of Agriculture. They’ve appeared at the annual Walnut Festival held down at Stockton. You can find their product increasingly throughout the state.

Of course . . . the moment of truth is when you taste the pickled walnuts! Realize: if you’ve grown up around black walnut trees, you’re going to have a deeply ingrained idea that all parts of the walnut tree, except the true nutmeats, are decidedly inedible. Or at least kinda gross.

Remember, black walnuts give off juglone, a respiratory inhibitor (to plants) that keeps other plants (such as tomatoes) from thriving near a walnut tree. As a kid, I simply came to the conclusion that walnut trees must be kinda toxic.

All the green parts of the tree smell funky, and the new growth of shoots and leaves can be sticky and resinous. If you have a walnut sprouting up in your flower bed (thanks to the squirrels) and pull it out with your hands, you’ll smell the walnut juice immediately.

The green husks that surround the shell give off a sap that stains everything it touches dark brown. As a kid I usually had brown hands and knees in the autumn from playing in the backyard under the walnut tree.

So the idea of eating one of these little suckers whole is bizarre, to say the least. But here is my verdict, in a nutshell (pardon the pun): Very good, when combined with other foods, but probably not something you’d want to eat by itself.

They are very pickled-tasting, sour and sweet and funky. For some reason I cannot name the flavor that predominates, though it tastes familiar to me. Is it alum? Is it mace, or cloves? Sue says she thinks it is the flavor of the actual walnut juice. Hmmm.

So they are pretty strong, and they have a grainy texture, which I think comes from the green hull (it all turns black once pickled). I personally wouldn’t want to eat a whole one. Slice it first.

In England, pickled walnuts are often eaten as part of a cheese and cold-cut/sausage tray. I think the nuts are generally sliced when served this way. I would imagine that the cheese tray could naturally contain some traditional British cheeses—cheddar, stilton, and so on. I’ve tried the walnuts with sharp cheddar, and the combination is terrific.

The pickled walnuts are also supposed to be good with roasted or grilled meats (Dickens’s character asks for “a mutton chop and a pickled walnut”). I can see where you could grind up the pickled walnuts, mix it with some of the juice, and make a kind of relish out of it. A “catsup,” if you will. I’ll bet that the dark sharp bite of the walnuts gives some excellent zip to steaming meat. You can also marinate a roast in the pickled walnuts. Look for this as the “next thing” at highfalutin big-city restaurants.

The Barnicles suggest grinding the pickled walnuts and using them “in a dip, in a salad dressing or sprinkled on a salad,” adding that they are also “great with eggs and egg dishes. Sprinkle ground nut in deviled egg mixture and add some on top before serving.”

I would suggest that they are an excellent gift and something to start a conversation over. Of course, I am supporting our local made-in-Missouri products, but you can also tell that I’m sort of a “foodie,” and I find this a wonderful new flavor to play around with.

By the way, they’re not exactly cheap: Down at Columbia’s Root Cellar, they sell for six seventy-five for an eight-ounce jar. But if you stop and review the complicated process for preparing these little suckers, you’ll understand why the Barnicles sell them for so much.

And once you’ve tasted them, you might find yourself with a brand new little addiction. In fact, you might even start doing things that really piss off the local squirrels.

Photo comments. Throughout this post, the photos show the pickled walnuts, whole, cross-sectioned, and sliced and served on crackers. The pickled walnuts are the black ones.

I’ve also included pictures of some fresh walnuts from our tree, taken last night, with the good ol’ Missouri quarter to show how they’ve grown since last time. The fresh walnuts are green. Some pictures show fresh and pickled walnuts together, with cross-sectioning. They are about the same size; I’ll bet the Barnicles are down there in Mary’s Home right now harvesting the same-size immature walnuts for their pickles. I’ll bet their squirrels hate them.

The picture of the “hatpin-through-the-walnut trick” is to show you that our walnuts are indeed still at pickling stage: The shell inside isn’t yet hard enough to prevent the pin from penetrating.

The photo of the jars on the shelf was taken at Columbia’s own Root Cellar, purveyor of Missouri-grown, farm-fresh produce, meat, bread, and milk (814A East Broadway): local, local, local! They were kind enough to let me take pictures in their shop: Thanks a lot!