Last fall I went nutting with some friends in a river bottom riven with meandering streams and sprinkled with marshes, potholes, and sloughs such as this one. I imagine it is as wild as it was when the Sac and Fox (Meskwaki) tribes lived here hundreds of years ago. (To find your own hickory nut hunting ground, see the shellbark hickory range map on page 49.)
Shellbark nuts, like walnuts, have a thick husk, a hard shell, and edible meat. If the husks are green and tightly formed, they’ll loosen and come off more easily when the nuts are allowed to dry for a week or so after harvesting. You’ll need to remove the loosened husk by hand before attacking the shell. Few nutcrackers are up to the task of opening a shellbark hickory nut, so most foragers crack them with a few strong blows of a hefty hammer (put the nuts on a hard surface such as a driveway, sidewalk, or concrete step first), then pick out the meats. 46
THE IOWAN | iowan.com