They also roast and grind the nuts into a coffee substitute, that according to some is one of the best you can forage. The french press out the rich oil for flavorful salad dressings at a rate of about 1 quart of oil to 10 pounds of nuts. Though in the US beechnuts are mostly considered a foragers novelty or a survival food these days, in Europe beechnuts are still used for cooking.
Occasionally you’ll find husks with 3 nuts inside.
Note that there are two tiny nuts in each outer husk. If you see either of these two issues, save yourself a lot of time shelling beechnuts by discarding these before the curing step.Ī handful of beechnuts with the outer husks still on. Similarly, if an insect has beaten you to the beechnut, there will be a tiny exit hole where they left after consuming the nutmeat. The shell itself will be a bit concave or collapsed in on itself because there’s no nut inside. Often, you can tell if a beechnut shell is a “blank” before you even open it. Part of this is due to the beechnut diseases that cause the trees to produce blanks, and a part of it is due to insect pests. When you forage beechnuts in the woods, much of your harvest will actually be empty shells. The cooking neutralizes any toxins present in the nuts, and gives them a wonderful flavor. That said, I’ve yet to run across it? I’ve mostly seen it in association with the European beechnut species ( Fagus sylvatica) and I’m foraging American Beech (Fagus grandifolia).Īfter that, beechnuts are roasted in a pan about 3-5 minutes until fragrant. Simply rub the shelled nuts between two towels and then pick out the white nuts. This papery husk has tiny hairs that can cause throat irritation and should be removed. I’ve read that some beechnuts are brown when they come out of the husk, and they’re coated by yet another papery husk. Inside each triangular shell, you’ll find a single beechnut.
That is to say, not hard to accomplish but requires patience. It’s about as difficult to remove as sunflower seed shells.
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The shell is thin, and you can easily peel it apart with your fingernails or quickly crack it between your teeth before pulling it apart. This, I’ll admit, is time-consuming if you’re harvesting beechnuts in quantity. If you do plan to use the beechnuts immediately, the next step is to remove the inner leathery shell. A jar rodent-proof jar with a tight-fitting lid works best. Unless you plan to use the nuts right away, store the nuts in their shells after curing. Once cured, beechnuts will keep for years provided the interior shell is fully intact. Simply remove the outer velcro husk and then lay the nuts out in a single layer in a well ventilated indoor space for a few weeks. Like most nuts, the interior nut meat is pretty wet right off the tree and the flavor improves with a bit of patience. More like velcro than spikes.Īfter the outer husks are removed, allow the nuts to dry for about 2-3 weeks. The husks do have spikes, but unlike chestnut husks, they’re not particularly sharp. The nuts can be husked by hand quickly and easily by rubbing bunches of them between towels and then picking out the husks. Processing the pods is pretty straightforward. For the best beechnuts, look for the smooth grey trunk of a healthy beech tree. If you’re curious about the specifics of the scale insect and associated fungus, this article from Northern Woodlands is a good summary. That’s less for the birds, deer and human foragers to find on any given woodlot. The downside, however, is that as this disease progresses, the trees produce more and more empty beech nutshells. It’s killed back from the top, but generally recovers and suckers up from the bottom. Unlike other tree species, which are going extinct as a result of their non-native diseases and pests, the beech is still going strong. The fungus makes larger wounds in the bark, which allows more insects to colonize, which in turn allows more openings for the fungus. The problem is, once the cycle is started it’s hard to reverse. It’s the fungus that eventually kills the tree. A tiny scale insect, called Cryptococcus fagisuga wounds the bark, and then those wounds are colonized by two different types of fungus, Neonectria ditissima and Neonectria faginata. You’ll pull off the velcro outer casing, and then remove the inner shell with your fingernails, only to find that the seed is empty.īeech scale disease is actually two different pests that form a positive feedback loop. Beech scale disease will also cause the tree to produce nuts with empty seed shells. The bark sometimes has scales or fissures because of beech scale disease, and diseased trees will produce substantially fewer nuts. Beech leaves just starting to turn in mid-October in Vermont.
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